In my previous post I shared some information for beginners about purchasing a basic oil pastel set - a box of Sakura oil pastels and appropriate paper.
In this post, I would like to share other good and not so good brands of oil pastel. Personally I like the Sakura set - it’s good quality for students, cheap and enough to start drawing.
However, there are some other brands which you can use too.
It's a good idea to mix different brands when drawing because they have slightly different shades of colors. You may remember from my previous post - the more colors you have, the better.
1. Pentel Arts 50 sticks - a good set with a good price on Amazon and nice oil pastel which I use
along with the Sakura set.
2. Mungyo oil pastels 50 sticks - it’s more expensive, however I would not say it’s better quality; you can find pretty colors which you do not have in your basic set though.
They also have a bigger set - 72 colors - it’s a full collection, you can buy them even in a wooden box.
Pay attention, Mungyo brand has oil pastels in blue boxes and Gallery oil pastel in grey boxes. Even if you can see “Gallery” in an online name you should check the box and pastel sticks. Boxes and pastel sticks should include the word “Gallery”.
I have only a metallic small set from the Gallery collection. I am going to buy a big Gallery set to test it because other artists say that Gallery has better quality and it’s professional, not student grade quality.
On Amazon they have the same prices for student and professional grade oil pastels, it looks confusing! Curry's art supplies store has correct prices - student grade twice cheaper than professional.
Next post will be about professional oil pastels.
For students it’s enough to have a Mungyo set in blue box 50 or 72 colours.
3. Staedtler oil pastel 36, popular set is 24. The set is too small set, the quality is not really great so I would recommend not to waste money. It’s better to buy more colors for this price.
Important: you will use a white stick very very often! Moreover a white stick should cover previous layers of oil pastel because at the end of drawing you should apply highlights. That’s why your white should be soft. In Sakura and Pentel sets you can find 2 white sticks. In addition you may buy a separate white stick of any brand. Usually it’s a professional pastel which you can find in art supplies stores.
Conclusion: if you want to buy a student set, it should be a big set at least 50 colors. It's a good idea to have 2 or 3 different brands to extend your palette and to have extra white sticks.
Read about professional pastel next Wednesday, January 20. Stay tuned!