SAKURA Cray-Pas Junior Artist Oil Pastels, 50 Count (Pack of 1), Colors may vary

Great. Love the colors as well as price

Super fun and easy to use. It'd be great for someone getting into pastels and the color variety was great too! I got them for my intro art class and they worked great!

I had these Cray-Pas when we lived in Tokyo in the 1950's. They are still the wonderful, saturated "crayons" they were back then. I bought them for young nieces and nephews, plus an extra box for me!

A friend recommended that I try out these Cray-Pas for some of my art projects; I was unfamiliar with oil pastel sticks like these. There are enough colors in this starter set for my purposes, but I can imagine real artists wanting even more variety. I love the creamy feel of the sticks and bold pigment they lay down. I'll probably upgrade to the 48-color Expressionist Cray-Pas once I get more experience using this type of color. I'm still experimenting with using pastels on different kinds of paper and other surfaces; so far the only one I have rejected is plain notebook paper (too smooth?). Love drawing with these in my sketchbook and also on canvas. The Sakura website has a lot of very cool techniques to try out with these pastels; I really like the dotting and masking drawing methods. My one star off is because these come completely loose in their box (no inner plastic wrap to hold them in place), and they were a mess: the different colors had wiped onto each other, leaving no "pure" tips on the sticks. I tried to clean some off by hand, but mostly I just had to waste product by drawing out lines until the smudged dots were worn away. I understand that this is the Junior assortment, so these sticks aren't boxed up with the same care as expensive art supplies, but it was still disappointing to see my new colors so mistreated.

this drawing was used in combination of pentel and mont marte pastels. The face and cat were done with pentel. Pentel has a wider range of colors and the pastel layers “dry” fast ( compared to mon marte )which allows easier blending. The two brands aren’t super compatible blending wise unless you layer pentel first. The mont marte pastels are softer so when you try to draw on top of it with something harder like pentel you won’t get good results unless you wait for the layer to “dry”. The dress was done with mont marte because it wasn’t required to get as much detail from layering and the fact the pastels are larger so you’ll be able to cover more ground. The pentel pastels were useful for the detailed portions and areas that require a lot of layering. 100% recommend. The pastels break easily so I end up buying more product but the price point is very good. It’s fun to use I guess when there are no deadlines for art commissions.

Always vivid and bright! Great for my Kindergarten crafts! They gasp the first time they use them!

Quality looked really good. Was given as a gift.

First time using oil pastels, but from a beginner perspective, these are fun to use, and easy to get the hang of blending well with a little practice.