Description
Schmincke Extra-Fine Soft Pastels are renowned amongst pastel artists for their softness and consistency. These XL Extra Large White pastel sticks are approximately 2.6 times larger than a standard Schmincke soft pastel.
Schmincke XL White Soft Pastel 001 – D
Also available in a regular sized soft pastel stick.
Features:
- Each stick is handmade individually – colours that are as soft as velvet and silk
- 400 brilliant and rich colours
- Exceptionally strong colour application
- Best, highly concentrated artists’ pigments
- Minimum binder content
- Maximum lightfastness
Pastel painting has enjoyed great popularity for centuries, uniting drawing techniques with an intense colour effect. The extra-fine soft pastels by Schmincke are as soft as velvet and silk, with a particularly soft and intense colour application. This is a result of their formulation and the traditional production technique. The colour spectrum of 400 shades allows limitless artistic possibilities. Use them in their pure form on pastel paper, in mixed-media techniques or on special Schmincke primers on canvas.
Check out our blog about this amazing art material.
Brilliant colours as soft as silk and satin
Working with Schmincke pastels leads you back to the origin of colour. Schmincke round pastel sticks consist of only the finest artists’ pigments without chalk, and a minimum amount of binder. The binder content is so small that the ground pigments only just achieve a stable bond.
Traditionally crafted pastels
The unusual formulation, which guarantees a unique strong colour application, also requires an equally unique production process: Traditional Craftsmanship. In this traditional and time-consuming process, screw presses are used first to shape the pre-kneaded dough into round strands. These are then removed by hand and cut into the right length in wire-strung frames. While the sticks are still damp, they are left to air dry for 8 days before they are labelled by hand.
It is not possible to produce Schmincke soft pastels using machines because of their particularly fine formulation. The expensive sticks could break. The guaranteed consistency of quality and softness across all production cycles is crucial. This means that artists know that the colour will always have the same quality.
Unlimited variety of colour
The complete range includes 400 colour shades, divided into 75 colours which each have 5 grades: In addition to the pure colour (D), there is a black graduation (B) and 3 grades of white graduations (H, M, O). The balanced range is supplemented by a 10-step neutral grey series, 5 dark shades, gold, silver, 2 black shades, white and 5 special pearlescent shades for specific effects. This variety of colours is another sign of quality of the finest, extra-soft pastels by Schmincke. Find a full colour chart here.
Have you ever wanted to know how Schmincke Soft Pastels are made? Check out this video!
