Neopastel Artists' oil pastel - Caran d'Ache - 141, Sky Blue

Artists' grade Neopastel oil pastels by Caran d'Ache.

Caran d'Ache has been an expert in pastel production since 1952. More than 30 years ago, state-of-the-art Neopastel oil pastels were developed to fully meet the needs of professionals and amateur artists.

The pastels have a waterproof, oily, creamy and velvety texture and do not crumble. They offer high pigment saturation, excellent lightfastness and exceptional ease of application and blending. One of the biggest advantages of Neopastel oil pastels is their incredible opacity. Although they cost slightly more than standard pastels, they end up covering more square inches of a painting. The high performance of Caran d'Ache oil pastels is a huge advantage, especially if you intend to create large format paintings.

Each series of pastels is a different formula with its own characteristics - they can be very soft or almost as hard and dry as a pencil crayon. Neopastel pastels have a medium hardness for artist grade oil pastels. They are third in hardness, right after Sennelier and Holbein. They are not the softest pastels, but they are a good contender for being the smoothest, with a truly buttery texture that makes blending them fabulously easy. With just one finger stroke, the pastels smudge perfectly and leave a smooth streak. They are much softer than the Neocolor series pastels - those require much longer blending and more layers of color to get a satisfying result. 

Some artists are faithful to one pastel because they value it for its specific qualities and performance. Others use a combination of pastels from different brands, depending on whether they need a hard pastel or a softer one at the time. Neopastel pastels can be used on almost any substrate (tinted paper, tracing paper, plain paper, canvas, wood, glass, leather), as well as on dried media such as ink, acrylic, water-based and oil-based paints. Neopastel pastels will be perfect for use alone or in combination with other oil pastels.

They can be dissolved in turpentine by applying it directly to the drawing, or by gently dipping the pastel tip into it.

Features:

• - amazing opacity;
• - buttery consistency;
• - excellent resistance to light;
• - ease of application;
• - brilliant blending;
• - medium hardness;
• - high efficiency;
• - can be dissolved in white spirit.