Unison Colour Soft Pastels - Set of 36 Emma Colbert Animal Collection

Reviews

"Well thought out colour range" by Melanie O. - 9 November 2021

The Emma Colbert Animal Collection is a lovely range of colours for painting any almost creature. This is a very well thought out selection. There is a good range of tonal values, colour temperature and saturation. And Emma Colbert has paid careful consideration of the types of subjects artists would like to paint. This is a lovely set for professional artists and art students (new to pastels) interested in a broad range of animals even South African wildlife. Emma has thought of everything even if your dog gives a gummy smile there are a range of pink tones to choose from. And though it is not a landscape set there are lovely blues for sea or sky that can be mixed with yellow for grass (or cats eyes) and a few vibrant and pastel colours that could be used for flowers or a sunset. Bearing in mind you will most likely need more colours for landscape/seascape and Unison do have sets dedicated to those subjects but there is certainly enough colour range to start with even to paint portraits of people. The pastels are buttery soft and hold well to paper, I tested them on Clairfontaine Pastelmat and Canson Mi-Teintes and it held well to both (although better on the pastelmat with hardly any dustfall). They hold their shape they don't crumble if you apply pressure. And the pastel sticks are quite a generous size so although Unison pastels are not cheap I found that they are more than twice the size of sticks in some more affordable sets and contain much more pigment than the pencils. Starting out with pastels is quite overwhelming as there are so many types of pastels but the Unison pastels handle underpainting, top layers and some final details. This set is a good starting point that can be built on as budget allows. Packaging - they came in a plain sturdy well padded navy box without branding and a card inside from Unison Colour with care instructions.