Conté à Paris Pastel Pencil - White

Love these for art work on black paper

I've just discovered pastels and am still at the experimental stage as to what projects they will be useful for. This brand was recommended by my local art & craft shop, however, they stock only a limited range of colours which is why I've turned to Amazon, yet again (!) to solve my crafting problems. Easy to use and great results so far!

Great quality with a good weight

~ Conté à Paris ~ Pastel Pencil ~ 007/ Red Brown ooOoo I love the opportunity to be able to purchase a single pencil, to ‘try it & see’, before (perhaps) investing in a set. Granted, it can be a gamble with online order delivery, but the ‘Conté à Paris Pastel Pencil’ I received came well-protected in a little bubble-wrap jacket in with the other items in my order, so no problems regarding a broken tip/core. Advertised as ‘harder density than the soft pastel range’, I have none of the latter to compare it to, at the time of writing, but as it is a thicker core than my Derwent collection, the chunkier ‘point’ delivers a strong layer of colour and is particularly useful for larger areas. The resultant residue is about the same. The pastel pencil came ready to use and measures around 17.5 cm in length. To know that you have the genuine product: ~ ‘Conté à Paris' is scripted in silver grey on the shiny round barrel, along with ‘PASTEL’, the colour code, 'FRANCE' & ‘1355’ The barcode is printed on, so there is no sticky residue from having to remove a stubborn label. Yay! I have a couple of colours in this range, including my favourite (images below): Prussian Blue/022 (incorrect stock image displayed above for this shade!) ~ ‘Conté à Paris was founded by Nicolas Jacques Conté who created the pencil as we know it by mixing graphite with clay and introducing the possibility of different degrees of hardness. Over the years, the quality and depth of the range has grown to offer a wide variety of techniques and effects that can be used for drawing, sketching and pastel work. Slightly harder core than soft pastels, these pastel pencils have a 5 mm diameter lead.'

This pastel pencil is better than the more expensive ones I've tried, will definitely be only using this brand from now on

Well they arrived in their blister packaging, unfortunately the said packaging had seen better days and one of the pastels had the tip broken off. I tried to sharpen it and the pastel just fell away inside the barrel so I think this one has a number of breaks along its length. So I have a noticeably shorter pencil on day one before even starting drawing. I should really send them back but just get fed up with returning damaged badly packed items. Anyway I gave them a quick trial and they seemed very scratchy and hard to pass across both pastel and cartridge paper. I'm not familiar with this make but not how I thought they would respond in the hand, I will give them a proper test in the next week and update if they improve with use.

I really like these, they are easy to draw with and feel good. I bought them in both black and white, and I use them for drawing shapes on painted surfaces,unpainted surfaces and some materials such as interfacing, calico etc. They don't work on every single fabric, it's trial and error, but they do work on many. They show up well and are easier to handle than chalk is for instance. They are much 'fatter' than normal pencils so you need a pencil sharpener that can accommodate this.

Absolutely love them, very white and better than expected. I wanted them for charcoal pictures and they're good. Not waxy at all, which is exactly what I was looking for. Beware though, they're thicker than a normal pencil so a standard sharpner won't do.