Review: Unison Colour Ocean Blue Pastels

This set of punchy pastels are in a league of their own.

5 Star Rating

Our Verdict

These luxurious handmade pastels pack all the tones of the ocean into a single box, and they're a joy to use.

For

  • Gloriously rich colours
  • Fantastically smooth strokes
  • Wonderfully consistent

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Unison Pastels is a range of handmade pastels from Northumberland. Their creator, artist John Hersey, began making the pastels in the 80s after struggling to find a commercial product that matched the quality of colour and consistency of texture he required. Here we're reviewing the Ocean Blue 12-pastel set created in collaboration with artist Zaria Forman. And they really are a joy to use. 

Unison's Ocean Blue pastels were developed with Zaria Forman, who creates stunning images like this

Unison's Ocean Blue pastels were developed with Zaria Forman, who creates stunning images like this

As the name suggests, the set comprises 12 ocean-inspired tones. The richness of colour is luxurious and the smoothness of the strokes is unlike any pastel we've used before. Each pastel is roughly 5cm in length and between 1-1.5cm in diameter. Because each pastel is hand-rolled, there's also some wonderful inconsistency in shape. If you're looking for a medium brimming with colour, which is portable and fun to work with, then this could be your best purchase yet.

This article originally appeared in Paint & Draw issue 4; buy it here!

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The Verdict
10

out of 10

Review: Unison Colour Ocean Blue Pastels

These luxurious handmade pastels pack all the tones of the ocean into a single box, and they're a joy to use.

Rob Lunn is a self-taught painter, and loves to paint in oils. His influences are Vincent van Gogh, Caravaggio and Ilya Repin. He has taught art workshops since 2012 and gets a real buzz from teaching people to draw and paint. He has contributed to Paint & Draw magazine and bookazines, and has also provided traditional art tutorials for Creative Bloq.