Rembrandt Soft Pastel Set, Deep Blues, 5 Count

Bought the Rose Violets 5 Half Sticks in Micro Set though 3 out of the 5 are broken. Please understand that this is fragile precious cargo for artists and do a better job at packaging.

I was expecting a super soft pastel that would wear down quickly and crumble a lot on paper. However when I received these pastels today and did a little test run with them, I was surprised at the heaviness of each half stick. They have some decent weight to them. After applying some to the paper it barely made a dent on the pastel itself. I can see these lasting a long time compared to sennelier, which are nice to have but you have to be extremely frugal with how much and how often you use them.I live in a household where everyone seems to be allergic to everything so I used some water and a watercolor brush to make a wash with the pastel colors. I used a fabriano watercolor fat pad, 140 lb paper. I'll definitely be buying more colors!

I liked Blue! Two of these five pastels were in common with the Rembrandt set of 90, but the addition of the deep dark blue, and the two pale blues, still about half the cost of buying them individually made this a great choice. Rembrandts are medium soft. The pastels feel solid to your hand (unlike Sennelier for example which feels dusty in your hand) but the marks they make are very soft and blendable. I understand why it is considered the essential workhorse of the craft.

The item along with 12 other sets finally arrived today. they took longer than expected but, I have them now and I'm very pleased with them. They are in perfect condition and in the same beautiful colors as shown on the Amazon website. I really like how they selected the colors for each set. You can utilize a lot from just a couple of a 5 piece pack. Thanks again for the product. I will be back soon.

Brightness/saturation of pigment not there like pictured product

All of the Rembrandt micro sets are great for 5-value underpaintings, for adding grasses, flower stems, branches, etc. into pastel paintings. For me they aren't stand alone in that I add soft pastel over them to work with them, but all of the micro sets are affordable, lightfast, sets perfect for underpaintings in the beginning or texture (grasses, fur, etc.) at the end of the painting.