Ampersand Panels reach the UK - at long last!

Virtually the complete range of Ampersand panels are now available in the UK - from Jackson's Art Supplies.  

They are the business!  There are surfaces for every type of art medium (see below) and some work work well with more than one media.

These are the ones which are now going to be available in the UK:

• Aquabord - for watercolour. Check out 
• Painting in Watercolor: An Exercise using Aquabord™ with Karen Vernon
• Aquabord 2.0 Revisited
• Artist Panel - which comes in three different surfaces: Canvas, Basswood and Smooth
• Claybord - for ink and egg tempera (and a variety of other media). Check out 
• Graphic Media: Pen and Ink on Claybord™ and 
• Claybord used as Scratchboard
• Acrylic Painting on Claybord by Rock Newcomb
• Encausticbord - a new product for use with hot wax
• Gessobord - for those who like their boards with gesso already applied
• Pastelbord - for artists working in dry media who like a sanded surface eg pastel and coloured pencil artists. Check out 
• Innovative Pastel Methods on Pastelbord
• Scratchbord - for those who like to scratch at the surface to produce an image

I've imported Pastelbord in the past from the USA. It's a great surface to work on and I love the fact you can prder it in different sizes and colours. However what is so very impressive is the rigidity of the board and the fact it does not warp in any way and they can be framed without glass so long as the surface is robust (eg oil and acrylics) or sealed with a varnish (e.g. watercolour and coloured pencils).  Plus all the boards are eco-friendly and safe for artists to use.

For your further information on the Ampersand website there is

• a great FAQs page
• plus a Technical page gives you a summary of what art media works with which board. Just in case you miss it, this is their summary of how to choose the best board for the media you prefer to use
• plus the AmpersandArtsSupply Blog for features on what artists have produced using the different panels and lots of useful tips eg Resources for Framing Panels

Media	Product	Discussion
ACRYLICS	Claybord Gessobord Pastelbord	We highly recommend using thin washes of acrylics on Claybord. Or, try Gessobord for a less absorbent panel or Pastelbord for a surface with more texture and a toned ground.
AIRBRUSH	Claybord	Claybord is ideal for airbrush.
CALLIGRAPHY	Claybord	Ampersand recommends Claybord with this medium.
CASEIN	Claybord Gessobord	Claybord and Gessbord are both appropriate for use with casein.
EGG TEMPERA	Claybord	Use egg tempera on Claybord. Compare with panels you are preparing yourself.
ENCAUSTIC	Encausticbord	Encausticbord is made for the unique demands of encaustic painting.
GOUACHE	Aquabord	We recommend Aquabord for use with gouache.
GRAPHITE AND COLORED PENCILS	Claybord	Use graphite and colored pencils withClaybord.
INKS, INDIA INK, COLORED INKS	Claybord Scratchbord	We recommend Claybord with inks because they can be easily erased and manipulated.
MARKERS	Claybord	Use Claybord with markers and frame without glass.
OILS AND OIL STICKS	Claybord Gessobord	We recommend Gessobord for use with oils. Claybord may also be used but is very absorbent..
PASTELS	Pastelbord	We recommend Pastelbord for working with all types of pastels.
SCRATCHBOARD	Scratchbord	Use Scratchbord as a professional alternative to scratchboard paper.
WATERCOLORS	Aquabord	Use Aquabord, similar to cold press paper, for very wet watercolor washes.

 Summary of how different media work with Ampersand Products

Do also:

• read this blog post on the Jackson's Art Blog - Ampersand Painting Panels are Extraordinary Surfaces for Your Art - which explains all the different surfaces in detail.
• check out the new Ampersand page on the Jacksons website

Ampersand Panels are  hugely impressive - and I'm sure a lot of artists are going to want to try them for themselves.

NOTE: A more limited range of Ampersand Panels are also available from Ken Bromley Art Supplies.

2014 POLL: Which is your favourite make of artist grade soft pastels?

The new 2014 POLL: Which is your favourite make of artist grade soft pastels? is now open to voting - by pastel artists - on my website Pastels - Resources for Artists.

It will run for the whole of 2014 and I'll do a report on the results at the end of the year (eg see
The Top Five Soft Pastels in 2013)

You can also vote in the polls on:

• POLL: Which is your favourite brand of dark pastels?
• POLL: Which is your favourite make of hard pastel?
• POLL: Which brand of pastel paper or other support do you like best for pastels?

Do please also leave any comments as to why you like what you like best.

Below is a photograph of two sets of Henri Roche pastels which somebody won at the last annual exhibition of The Pastel Society which I was reviewing.

The Discovery and Earth set of Henri Roche soft pastels
possibly the most expensive pastels in the world

The Top Five Soft Pastels in 2013

This post reviews my poll Which is your favourite make of artist grade soft pastels? which ran on my website Pastels - Resources for Artists during 2013.

Here's the chart of the results for 2013

It's the same Top 5 Pastels again - plus a tweak!

The top Five Soft Pastels, according to people who responded to the poll, were as follows.  Links to more information about the pastels are embedded in the name

1. Unison Soft Pastels (British) - repeating the pattern of all previous polls - Unison consistently come top.  At the end of the day, pastel artists recognise very high quality products and vote with their wallets!
2. Sennelier Extra Soft Pastels (French) One of the oldest and possibly the smallest pastels with one of the largest chromatic range of pastels - now offered in 525 shades
3. Schminke Soft Pastels (German) - Some of the smoothest pastels in existence. As I indicate on my website I've bought this very popular pastel in four different countries on three different continents!
4. Talens Rembrandt (Dutch) A very popular range which comes midway between soft and hard and one which many people start with - I know I did!
5. Joint 5th place
• Terry Ludwig (American) I always think of Terry Ludwig as being very like Unison in the sense of being an independent artisan supplier of soft pastels - who started small and has got bigger through the patronage of very many pastel artists.
• Girault (French) 
6. Girault got into the "top five" by virtue of Terry Ludwig having slipped slightly. 

Here you can see a table which gives the relative percentage share over the last few years - according to the poll.

BRAND OF PASTEL	2013	2011-2013	2011	2010	2006-2009
Unison	23%	18%	22.1%	21.9%	19.6%
Sennelier	17%	13%	14.7%	13.3%	15.9%
Schminke	13%	9%	6.6%	15.2%	11.7%
Talens Rembrandt	10%	8%	11.2%	9.4%	9.4%
Terry Ludwig	5%	6%	6.6%	6.1%	11.7%
Winsor & Newton	-	6%		4.7%	6%
Girault	5%	5%		5%	3.1%

As you can see the top four brands are now beginning to pull away from the rest of the pastel brands. I'm guessing this in part relates to the demise of the Winsor & Newton Pastel which can now only be obtained as discounted pastel sets.

Unison has had its best ever year and Schminke is regaining some of the ground it lost in 2011 and 2012.

Of the remainder PanPastels is growing a loyal band of followers and is doing well to achieve 3% of the vote.

Girault crept into Joint 5th place as a result of a slightly worse result by Terry Ludwig.

I've now posted a new Poll for 2014 - but will also be announcing it in a separate post tomorrow.

Past Polls about Soft Pastels

I've been running this poll for a while

• Unison is still favourite artist grade soft pastel (2012 results)
• Soft Pastels: What's your favourite make? (2011 results)
• Which is your favourite make of soft pastels? (2010 Poll Results)

2013 POLL: Which is your favourite make of artist grade soft pastels?

I'm monitoring your favoured brands of pastel and I'd appreciate it if all pastel artists click this link 2013 POLL: Which is your favourite make of artist grade soft pastels? to visit my website Pastels - Resources for Artists and vote on the BRAND NEW POLL for your current favourite make of soft pastel.

Is it the same as in previous years or have you switched allegiance recently?

Kremer Soft Pastels

I've edited the choice of soft pastels this year to those which are currently available in open stock and rated as artist grade soft pastels. That means:

PASTELS ADDED

• Blue Earth (available from Dakota Pastels) and 
• Kremer Pastels (available from Kremer Pigmente - and Jackson Art in UK)

PASTELS DROPPED

• Blick (student grade), and 
• Winsor & Newton (no longer listed as an available product as per 2013 website)

PASTELS AMALGAMATED

• I've amalgamated all the different Diane Townsend Pastels into one category

You can see the trends in terms of the popularity of different makes of soft pastels in yesterday's post Unison is still favourite artist grade soft pastel.

Unison certainly take some beating - they've been top in each one of the four polls I've run to date - however the ranking of the top five pastels changes on a regular basis.

Unison is still favourite artist grade soft pastel

Unison Colour's Soft Pastels are still pastel artists' favourite brand of soft pastels.  The image below is of the poll results after 445 people voted between January 2011 and May 2013.

The chart comes from the opinion poll which asked this question in a poll held on my Pastels - Resources for Artists website.  Only soft pastels available at the beginning of January 2011 were listed (alphabetically) in the poll.

The top three brands of soft pastels are all made in Europe.  They were:

• Unison (18%)
• Sennelier (13%)
• Schminke (9%)

Others which did well included Talens Rembrandt (8%); Terry Ludwig (6%); Winsor & Newton (6%) and Girault (5%).

As in previous polls a lot of smaller brands have carved out a niche and have some support - generally around 2-3%

Soft Pastels Popularity - Trend analysis

Here's what the trends in terms of poll results have looked like over the last 4 times I've reported on which are the favourite brands of soft pastel.

• As you can see Unison has averaged c.20% +/- 2% and has consistently topped the poll for the last 6 years.  
• Sennelier has continues to maintain its lead over Schminke
• Talens Rembrandt continues to challenge for third place - but isn't achieving at the moment
• Terry Ludwig continues to lead the USA 'pack' of artisan pastel makers

BRAND OF PASTEL	2011-2013	2011	2010	2006-2009
Unison	18%	22.1%	21.9%	19.6%
Sennelier	13%	14.7%	13.3%	15.9%
Schminke	9%	6.6%	15.2%	11.7%
Talens Rembrandt	8%	11.2%	9.4%	9.4%
Terry Ludwig	6%	6.6%	6.1%	11.7%
Winsor & Newton	6%		4.7%	6%
Girault	5%		5%	3.1%

Notes:

1. the 2006-09 poll was run continuously for three years and had 
2. the 2010 Poll ran for a year and had 361 responses
3. the 2011 Poll was checked in February 2012 and had 252 responses - so the poll was left to run until the end of 2012.  
4. The 2011-12 Poll was not various reasons led to the final tot-up to this poll not happening until now (mid-May 2013)
5. The 2013 Poll will not be a full year and may run until the end of 2014.

Previous Polls

• Soft Pastels: What's your favourite make? (2011 results)
• Which is your favourite make of soft pastels? (2010 Poll Results)
• Opinion Poll: Which is your favourite make of soft pastels? (200609 results)

Unison Pastels

Unison Pastels - Resources for Pastel Artists is the website I created after Unison came top of the first three polls.  It provides more links to information about the pastels and the products available.  You can see pictures of the shades available - and what I've produced while using them.

Unison Pastels - Colour Charts

I came across an offer of three handmade laminated colour charts for Unison Pastels made by Unison Colour this morning.  It struck me I'd never done a post about Unison Pastels colour charts - so here it is!

Colour charts - and colour charts for pastels

Colour charts are available in a number of different ways.

• printed - needs to be matched to CMYK colours to get the colours right
• digital file - to be viewed on screen hence needs to be matched to the RGB colours (but then it will be wrong if printed out as it won't be set up for a CMYK colour scheme!)
• handmade - "as is"

See my Colour Theory for Artists site for the RGB (light) and CMYK (print) processes referenced above.

Inevitably, a printed colour chart is easy to produce but does not always match up with real colour.  This is one of the reasons why Old Holland Oil Colours have a hand painted colour strip on each tube of paint - so that the purchaser of an expensive paint can see the real colour when laid down.  It's why some manufacturers produce hand-coloured paint charts.

However when it comes to pastels there's a problem.  A hand-coloured chart cannot be stored either by the retailer or the consumer as the pastel will be rubbed off.  One pinned up in a studio will come to no harm - but these are probably best produced by the artist for the colour range they use.

Unison Pastel Colour Charts

Normally I access colour charts for Unison Pastels by looking at their website.  Unison have colour charts available as a printed chart (which you can obtain by emailing them) and on-screen colour indexed charts.  Both sets of charts are for their:

Unison Pastels - Colour Charts

Colour Sets

• Orange 1-18
• Red 1-18
• Red Earth 1-18
• Yellow 1-18
• Brown Earth 1-18
• Green 1-36
• YGE 1-18
• BGE 1-18
• Blue Green 1-18
• Blue Violet 1-18
• Grey 1-36
• Additional 1 - 18
• Additional 19-54
• Dark 1-18
• Light 1-18
• Special Collection
• Portrait 1-12
• Turquoise 1-6
• Natural Earth 1-18
• Heavenly Shadows

AND for their

Selection Sets

• Starter 8
• Portrait 8
• Landscape 8
• Bright 8
• Light 8
• Dark 8
• Starter 18
• Portrait 18
• Landscape 18
• Starter 36
• Portrait 36
• Landscape 36
• Starter 72
• Landscape 72
• Portrait 72 (UK & EUROPE)

AND for their

Half Stick Sets

• Half Stick 16 Set
• Half Stick 30 Set
• Half Stick 63 Set

Retailers' sets

I never buy retailer's sets unless I can see the index number itemised for every colour in the set - on the basis I've probably already got them!

JACKSON ARTS

A couple of special selection sets are available via Jackson Art where they provide good images of the colours - but no listing as to the index numbers of the colours chosen.

John's Set is apparently a set of the last colours that John Hersey made prior to his death.

The Ann Oram Set of 30 Half Sticks is new and you can read about it here on the Jackson Arts Blog - New Ann Oram Unison Soft Pastels Set.  Ann Oram taught a still life worksop at Unison's in Northumberland in 2012.

Colour Chart by photograph: 
Unison Pastels - Southwest Colors 

DICK BLICK

Dick Blick in the USA are excellent at listing the sets and associated index numbers of all pastels in each set that they stock.  They also list a number of sets which are available in the USA but not in the UK (see below)

Colour charts are available via photographs of the different sets in which the colour index number can be clearly seen. I'm not sure they have photographs for all the sets they retail.

Here, for example is the Southwest Colors set which is one I nearly bought in 2006 when making a trip out to the South Western States of the USA (see USA Sketchbook - Southwestern States (2006))

The sets they list include:

Portrait Colors: African American | Asian | Caucasian | Latino | Mediterranean | Native American | Portrait Eye Colors

Landscape Colors: Desert Sunset | Northern Sunrise | Polar Ocean | Tropical Ocean | Southwest Colors (includes the Turquoise set of 6)

Artists Colors: Brenda Mattson Portrait

JACK RICHESON

Jack Richeson has a printed color chart of all 402 colours (pdf file) that he stocks.  He uses it to relate the Unison names for Colour Sets to the sets he stocks.  On screen it looks like a pretty good match with the colours in the Unison sets.

Glyn Rand Colour Charts

This morning I discovered the existence of the handmade laminated colour charts for Unison Pastels made by Glyn Rand. He emphasises that his  product is neither affiliated to Unison Colour, nor is it endorsed by them.

A handmade chart gets round the difficulties associated with the RGB/CMYK processes which have to translate colour in reality into another medium of vision or print.

By completing the charts using the pastels and then laminating the charts, these should in theory be the best match with various Unison Pastels.

However there is a BUT....

Actually there are two BUTs....

Unison Pastels - Glyn Rand Colour Charts (Size A3 x 3)

The "But" is because my conclusion about this product is essentially "Nice idea, shame about the execution - and the price".

Why?

BUT.... #1

Well, the charts are NOT set up diagrammatically to provide a clear index of each 18 colour set.  Instead of 18 colours in a vertical column Glyn has chosen to go with just 16.  This means that:

• the colour sets are spread across different columns.  
• all the values are mixed up.  If looking for a light tone and colour you can't scan the bottom of the chart and the light set - as the lights are all over the place.

This would personally drive me absolutely potty and I couldn't look at them - I like my colours rigidly organised according to colour and tone because that allows me to work in an effective way.

In fact every pastel artist I've ever known had all their pastels organised on two dimensions - by colour and tone.  I can't think of any reason why any of them would want a colour chart which wasn't organised in the same way.

BUT.... #2

Personally I think the price of £30 for the three charts is a bit steep when one considers that a laminating machine for A3 paper only costs around about £30 on Amazon!  I don't think a product should ever prompt one to think about buying the kit required to produce the end product rather than the product itself!

If you've already got a lot of Unison Pastels - as I have - I'm drawn to conclude that :

• if you're not bothered by tonal values being all mixed up and don't think you'd have any use for a laminating machine - have a think about the charts
• produce your own if:
• you don't like your tonal values mixed up.....
• and/or think you could find a laminating machine useful

More about Pastels

You can read more about Pastels on my websites

• Pastels - Resources for Artists
• Pastel Paper and Pastel Boards
• Unison Pastels - Resources for Artists
• Pastel Societies - Resources for Artists