MUNGYOSoft Pastel Set – 64 Vibrant Colors for Artists | Smooth & Blendable | Square Shape

This is a lovely set of soft pastels for the beginning pastel student or the seasoned starving artist on a tight budget. The colors lay down fresh and vibrant. Of course there are better, higher quality pastels but they come with a price. You can do a lovely pastel work with these and each pastel goes a long way. Cheaper pastels have more binder and less color. More Expensive pastels have more color and less binder. Still, the quality of these pastels surprised me and I'm not at all disappointed.I'm able to use the Mungyo Pastels along with my pastel pencils as they blend and layer well. I've got a mix of pastel pencils from 4 different brands and they all work equally well.My pastels arrived well packed and none were broken. Even if they were broken, they're still usable and sharp edges can be used for better line work or to add color to small areas.I found Strathmore 500 Charcoal paper worked really well with these pastels as the paper gripped the color with each stroke allowing me to to blend and layer with excellent results. I tried the pastels on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper and the pastels were pulverized as I laid them down and I had pastel dust everywhere.To blend, I use my fingers and blending tortillions/stumps;Use a spray fixative after you finish to keep the pastel from smearing and to also keep it on the paper. If you want to use an inexpensive fixative for children's work or work you don't plan to keep, hairspray will work but won't preserve the art for the long haul. If your child does a piece of art you think you'll treasure for years to come, spring for the artist spray fixative.If you want to spray a fixative over your art and be able to use pastel on top of that so keep the color separated and fresh, use a workable fixative. Workable fixative as more of a tooth, grip, to it than regular fixative. It can also be used as your final coats of fixative. You probably want 2 or 3 final coats.Be sure to allow the fixative to dry completely before adding another coat. Use spray fixatives outdoors or in a well ventilated area.

I teach pastels and often get people that are interested in trying pastels, but don't want to make the initial investment into a high quality set (understandably) until they know they are going to like them. I began testing pastels and found Mungyo to be an excellent product for the money. At around $10 and 64 colors, you get a good selection of hues (colors) and a great value range (lights and darks of each color). There is some color mixing that needs to happen. For example in the painting of the oranges, I had to layer green over a dark blue to get a darker green that I needed. Even with all the colors in the world, you never seem to have the exact one you are looking for. This set along with a good quality pastel paper (UART 400, Pastel Premier, Pastel mat), you can try pastels. The sample I painted for my workshop used this set and Pastelmat paper. It is also a great travel set that is lightweight and fits into a small backpack/purse; with paper and pencil I can paint anywhere.

The pastels are quite soft and the colors are vibrant.

These are awesome! I'm a pastel artist and in my area it is really difficult to find good pastels for a decent price in both the colors and hardness/softness that I need. There are Rembrandt sets which are great pastels, but they are brittle and very expensive. The cheapest set of Rembrandts I can find near here are about $60, or $5.50 per stick individually. General's are another brand sold locally, and while those have the multiple shades of browns and grays that I need, the sticks are far too hard to lay down color with, and much better suited to sketching and hatching. Even the generic pastels from Hobby Lobby are better than General's, but they don't have sucha color variety, are thin, and not as vibrantly pigmented. Alphacolor are good, but still more expensive than this, and they don't have all the different color variations in one pack.These pastels were the answer to all the problems I've had with other brands. They are soft enough to lay down large surfaces of color. They are super vibrant and blend really well. They are slightly brittle, and the corners may break a bit if you press too hard, but they do not crumble and break in half like Rembrandts or some other brands of soft pastels.And the colors are amazing! The 4 in the top row are all neon. I haven't tested to see whether or not the glow under a blacklight, but they are bright enough that I assume they do. There are 4 shades of gray (not including black or white) about 5 shades of neutral brown, plus red, green, yellow, and orange tones of brown. There are deep reds and beautiful purples, and hot pinks that are so gorgeous I want lipsticks to match. And the only describes about half of the set!The set says there are 64 pieces. They are about half-stick size, but there are also two bonus skinny sticks in black and white. Also, of the 64 colors, it appears that 2 of them are pure white, so there are actually only 63 colors, but it's always useful to have extra white.The sticks are small, but for the price and the variety, they are totally worth it. I was shocked by the quality. These are pigmented enough to stain clothing, linoleum, etc.