Review of Caran d’Ache Artist Neopastels for Drawing and Painting

Caran d’Ache has been an expert manufacturer of pastels since 1952. More than 30 years ago, the craftsmen in their Geneva workshops developed the Artist Neopastel to satisfy the needs of professional and amateur pastel artists. In this review, I will be testing a selection of 10 Caran d’Ache Artist Neopastel colours on different textured papers, along with Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium.

The Physical Qualities of Caran d’Ache Artist Neopastels

The pastels are approximately 6.5 cm in length and cylindrical in shape, providing a flat surface for broader marks as well as a shaper edge for details. The pastels are soft, with a buttery texture that goes down onto the paper smoothly. They are wax-based and not watersoluble, and they do not crumble or powder like soft pastels. They come in 95 colours which are classified as having excellent lightfastness.

What Are the Characteristics That Stand Out From Other Pastels?

Compared to other brands that sit in the cheaper end of the bracket (the sort you might buy as a student set and can’t buy individually), they feel creamier and are richer in pigment. And compared to a more expensive brand which you can buy individually, for example, Sennelier pastels, they don’t feel quite as soft or sticky. I feel they sit nicely in the middle of available price points and quality – not too fancy for beginners but with the quality that more professional artists would expect. I have other materials by Caran d’Ache and find that as a brand they produce excellent quality materials and the Neopastel is no exception.

It’s worth noting that they are quite different to the popular Neocolor II Crayons Caran d’Ache also makes. The Neocolor are a slightly harder wax crayon (the Neocolor II even being watersoluble), whereas the Neopastel definitely sits firmly in the oil pastel camp and are not watersoluble.

Top row: Ultramarine, Olive Black, Burnt Sienna, Golden Ochre, Jade Green
Bottom row: Olive Yellow, Lime Green, Ash Grey, Granite Rose, Reddish Orange

Using the Artist Neopastels for Drawing in Sketchbooks or on the Go

I like to use the pastels at home in my studio as part of my mixed media approach to working. I don’t often just use oil pastels as the sole medium when drawing or painting because I like a variation of textures in my work. They are great for laying down a large block of colour, or they work well on top of other materials. I find in a sketchbook they can potentially smudge or get messy but it’s easy enough to protect sketchbook drawings by putting newsprint (or acid-free tissue) in between the pages or lightly spraying your work with a fixative. The Sennelier Oil Pastel Aerosol Fixative is pretty good at protecting work from dust and smudging.

The pastels are easy to handle, the paper wrapper protects you from getting too messy, and they are ideal for use in bold expressive ways. They are small enough to transport with you on location – they can be protected in a tin, or if you don’t want colour transfer on the pastels you could use some foam protectors. The colour is applied easily and they’re great for adding quick highlights of colour to your work. It feels joyful to use them by applying the pigment straight onto your drawing. You can also build up layers of colour and scratch away to achieve different textures.

Using Caran d’Ache Artist Neopastels With Other Materials

I chose 10 colours to experiment with – a range from pale up to darker shades, muted, and some brights. I wanted to see how they were in their raw form, as well as smudged with fingers, mixed with each other, and thinned using the Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium.

There was a clear difference in using them on the different paper stock. The Jackson’s Hot Pressed Watercolour Block is my preferred paper as it’s smooth, but it was interesting to see how the texture of the paper came through when I used the pastels on the cold pressed block. Although I don’t work on canvas in my practice, I can see how the pastels would work well on a canvas – both thinned with the blending medium and applied thicker as they are over the top of the thinned Neopastel, or traditional oil paint.

Jackson’s Watercolour Paper Block Hot Pressed 300 gsm 15 Sheets 6 x 8 in and Jackson’s Watercolour Paper Block Cold Pressed 300 gsm 15 Sheets 6 x 8 in

As I like to use a lot of mixed media in my work I tried experimenting with other materials over the Neopastels. Most of the materials I tried went over the top happily, even soft pastel which sort of blended with the Neopastel which was quite nice. The only thing that didn’t work so well was paint – it had a sort of resist technique, which I like, but might not be for everyone.

Using Caran d’Ache Artist Neopastels With Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium

I was really looking forward to trying this out as I enjoyed using the Meltz Pencil Blender a while back with Holbein pencils and I was hoping for a similar set of textures. I wasn’t disappointed! I really enjoy seeing brush marks in my work and have always enjoyed the look of oil paint when it’s thin and shows texture. For me, using the Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium gave an effect quite similar to this and it was really easy to use. I enjoyed the way you can blend the oil pastel down quite thickly, and also to very thin washes of soft textured colour. Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium doesn’t seem to leave a residue or colour on the paper when dried so I was impressed. The Jackson’s paper block is 300 gsm and there was no bleed-through with the blender either.

Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium

In my Royal Talens sketchbook, the blender does bleed through the page when it’s first applied so you can see it on the reverse, which is a shame but not unexpected on a paper weight of 140 gsm. However when the page is totally dry the show-through isn’t there and the page is unaffected which is excellent so you could work on back-to-back pages. It would be nice to use the blender to prep pages before going out to draw plein air. The Neopastel itself goes down nicely on the pages, the smooth nature of the paper helps it glide on.

In summary, if you have tried oil pastels before but perhaps found them messy or expensive, I’d definitely give the Caran d’Ache Artist Neopastels a go. The range offers a better mix of brights and more sophisticated muted colours. Many of the colours I love in their Neocolor II Crayons are offered in the Neopastel range and that is helpful in choosing a colour palette. If you’ve never been a fan of oil pastel because of the heavier nature of its application, I recommend you try them with Jackson’s Pencil Blending Medium – for me the ideal way to use them is as a background colour and base to work back into. Or if you are already a fan of oil paint but want something more suitable for plein air painting or to add quick highlights and additions to oil painting work, you might enjoy using these alongside your paints in your art practice.

Further Reading

Pastel Painting With Jackson’s Handmade Soft Pastels

How to Use Watercolour Pencils

What Unbleached Titanium Can Add to Your Palette

Inside the Sketchbook of Frances Ives

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