Comments about Sakura Cray-Pas Specialist Oil Pastels:

Drawing and painting, what is the difference. Abstract or otherwise, what is the difference. When and where do they merge. No matter. This product is quite nice (though I thought not so at first use) and useful for most any visual art approach, if the artist is open to such and willing to work out of their mental box. There are qualities of crayon, chalk, oil paint, encaustic, and all those traditional drawing media used in art school. Nice abstract or traditional drawings as well as paintings are possible. I use all oil pastel products among these and each other for different reasons. I also incorporat paints and other such media in my works. The final result is my own painting and drawing style. Four starts for fantastic stuff. Five stars reserved for myself!

Comments about Sakura Cray-Pas Specialist Oil Pastels:

My orders of the Cray-Pas Specialists arrived today and I played with them as soon as they arrived. These are NOT student grade oil pastels. They are one of the waxiest artist grade oil pastels and are not soft like Sennelier and Holbein, but I still can control them pretty well, especially compared to the very cheap oil pastels I've used in the past. I do prefer the softness of the Sennelier and Holbein, but that's just my preference. For those who like it hard, go with these oil pastels. Also, the wrappers around them have the lightfast ratings (+, ++, and +++).

Comments about Sakura Cray-Pas Specialist Oil Pastels:

I don't understand why Blick classifies Specialist oil pastels as student quality. They are far above other so-called student quality brands. The colors are wonderful and lightfast. Their square shape helps you create details better than a round shape. Plus, I find them to blend wonderfully with the extender for very professional results. I recommend Specialist very highly. They are nicer than Cray-Pas Expressionists and on par with Nupastels and Holbein in my opinion.

Comments about Sakura Cray-Pas Specialist Oil Pastels:

One of the many reasons to love oil pastels is that you can get good quality pastels without spending a fortune. If you are a retired person on a fixed income, a kid on an allowance, or a starving art student, you can still afford a nice set of oil pastels without skimping on quality. I recently tried a set of Sakura's very inexpensive Expressionist student grade oil pastels, and wanted to compare these. The Specialist is also listed by Blick as student quality, but really they seem fine for any level. I bought a group of my favorite colors from open stock and did some test thumbnails to compare the two kinds of Sakuras. (These cost about twice as much as the Expresionists, but are still very inexpensive).

I looked at the color intensity, ease of blending, and ability to layer light over dark. The Specialists are better at building layer of light over dark or dark over light. Using the colorless blender stick, the Specialists seemd a little harder to blend than the Ex's. Both had good color intensity, and blend well to create color mixes using just a few basic colors. I like to draw in a sgraffito style, using a sharp tool to carve through the top layers of pastel to expose the base layer. With Specialists, I could do both a base layer and the top layers. With the Expressionists, I had to use a softer brand like Neopastel to get good coverage in the top layers. The square edges of the Specialists can be used for finer lines than I get with the Ex's, or most other brands.

Bottom line: Like the Sakura Expressionists, this is a really good basic oil pastel. It's non-toxic, with all the colors you would really need. Not the most soft and spreadable, but you can work around this with a bit of practice. This is a big hefty pastel that will give you a lot of color for the price. A good value pastel that can meet your artistic needs at a low price.

Comments about Sakura Cray-Pas Specialist Oil Pastels:

Cray-Pas Specialist Oil Pastels are often unfairly over-looked as "Scholastic" quality. I work with a full range of oil pastel brands including Sennelier, Carandache, Holbein, Erengi, etc. The Specialist product fills a niche for a firm pastel useful for the early stages of a painting and where finer detail is required. I especially like the square shape which allows for multiple edges from broad with a defined width to finer line work. The pigment load and light-fastness are very good. Despite their fairly hard texture they blend very nicely themselves on the right support. I've obtained beautiful blending results using them by themselves on canvas paper grounds. I only wish the full 88 color selection was available either in their wood-boxed set or as individual sticks.