Well-known pastel artist, tutor and author Margaret Evans tried the new Jackson’s Handmade Soft Pastels and wrote about her experience.
Jackson’s Handmade Soft Pastels
New Pastels – New Love Affair
The serious pastel painter groans when we hear there’s a new brand of pastels on the block. It’s not that we need them, but we KNOW we’re going to WANT them!
Often a new brand will say they are cheaper, better quality, wider range, all things to all people, but not Jackson’s. They have seriously watched trends in pastel buying and done their homework – they know what we buy, what we need, and what we want. Then they have gone out and made accordingly. Their range of soft pastels don’t promise to be the softest, cheapest, bestest… just temptingly the worthiest of brands to add to your collection.
The full range is a comprehensive cross section of all the usual main colour wheels and the lighter and darker supplements to these colours. Nobody pretends they offer all shades & tones we need, but considering the keen price of these it makes buying the entire set affordable and will suffice the leisure painter for a long time, before you need to invest in further brands to supplement individual needs. I suspect they may add more tones and colours as time progresses, but a full set will keep you more than happy for a long time. Push the boat out with a empty box, specially made at a fraction of the price of my ‘posh’ boxes that my students drool over, and you can set them out in any way you like. Their creamy texture is soft enough to handle, but firm enough to keep shape and not crumble, helping to keep an economical balance whatever methods you use for them. I still insist on taking their covers off so I can apply pastel with the side of the stick as well as the ends, so I slit the covers, and leave them in the box, under each pastel, so I still have the colour number and name. Treat yourself – drop a few hints to the family – whatever means you need to acquire these beauties, and enjoy their purity, clarity and quality.
Margaret Evans
Old Bridge Glen Shiel
Pastel Painting
Intro To Jackson’s Pastels
My first working experience with my new Jackson’s pastels was to one of my workshop groups, demonstrating how to approach a new set for the first time. Everyone talks about how scary it is to start a new set, not wanting to spoil the look of them etc. so by taking the box along, brand new, I grabbed everyone’s attention by showing them raw and untouched. Much drooling followed!
The demo I used was deliberately chosen to work on an extra rough watercolour board, with a grit primer added to make it even rougher, and grip the pastels. The brand new set were ‘christened’ by slitting the covers of a chosen few for a limited palette, and – shock /horror – then carefully breaking the colour in half to give me a broad side to block in with. My audience gasped at this audacity – I know some will not copy this technique, much as I try to persuade!
Some new pastel brands often feel hard on the exterior, caused by the extrusion machine at the factory sliding them out , but these do have a handmade feel to them, and glide on smoothly to any surface.
If I feel the first block-in of pastel layers has filled up a lot of the ‘tooth’ of the support, I spray with Spectrafix – a cassein based fixative with no nasty odours and eco friendly – resulting in extra layers gliding over the first colours without lifting off . My touch is light, in order to add further layers and ‘glaze’ colour and tint on top of one another to create the desired effects – although we have a wonderful range of colours and tones provided in a full set, it is still important to mix colours on the paintnig, which also help to ‘scumble’ edges as in oil painting.
On the finished demo you will see the richness of colours achieved, but also, the use of wet techniques, by wetting the colour layers on the mountains to create a rich ‘impasto’ surface, which creates an oil paint finish to the work.
The foreground is dry pastel layered to give a tapestry of colours, and the sky is blended after multi layers are applied, to create a smooth surface by comparison to the rugged foreground.
These pastels are perfect for starting out in pastel – you will always want more, whether you plan to or not – but these are affordable, and worth buying the whole set if you can. Smaller sets are available and come in lovely thin black boxes, which fit directly into the wooden box, so you may treat yourself to this later.
However, the professional artist will love this brand too, as a supplement to their existing stock. The consistency is soft, but not too crumbly, therefore allows plenty of overlaying. They are also firm enough to add small detail, without fussing. They are compatible with very soft brands also, and dissolve well with water and spirits to create an extensive range of wet and dry techniques
I can’t wait for them to extend their range!!
Margaret Evans
Hot Rocks Quiraing
Pastel Painting
Click on the underlined link to go to the current offers on Jackson’s Handmade Soft Pastels on the Jackson’s Art Supplies website.
Postage on orders shipped standard to mainland UK addresses is free for orders of £39.
