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Soft Pastels

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Blendable

Work the way you want, whether combining colours or layering.

Lightfast

Your paintings will shine for years to come with the best rated pigments.

Mixed Media

Use our pastels in conjunction with watercolour and acrylic, or in any other creative ways.

Soft and Smooth

'Just like butter' - Experience the optimal softness for yourself...

Highly Pigmented

Use the best pigments for your work.

Flexible

Use wet or dry on the broadest range of surface types.

Order Single Pastels
Free UK Delivery on orders over £55
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Heritage 18 Set

"With the range of colours and tones in this box, it is possible to mix virtually any desired colour. This means you can explore working with colour across any given subject and make exciting discoveries."

Heritage 18 Set
Heritage 18 Soft Pastel set.

Seasonal Colours

We are celebrating the fabulous colours of a summer’s day with a beautiful range of 8 half stick pastels. Perfect for capturing your colourful flowers, summer holiday or a relaxing day in the garden.

Summer Mini Set
Small set of 8 soft pastels, perfect for summer days painting in the garden.

New Tutorial

Let Rebecca de Mendonça take you step by step through her process to capture the form, textures and beautiful colours of this buckskin horse.

Includes 2 Hours of detailed video tuition, Materials and Pastel Paper advice and Reference images.

£19.99

Buckskin Horse Tutorial
Buckskin Horse finished painting.

Return Of The Summer Sparkle

Add a bit of ‘sparkle’ to your Unison Colour soft pastel collection with this limited-edition ‘Summer Sparkle’ mini set of 8 half stick pastels.

Summer Sparkle Set
Summer sparkle mini set 2023 2 sq 4000

Limited Edition Centenary Sets

The Centenary range are an extremely special range of pastel sets consisting of archived colours no longer in our range - remnants of Unison Colour’s long and colourful history.  Some of these pastels were quite possibly crafted by John Hersey himself.

UK Shipping Only.

Centenary Sets
All 3 Centenary Sets laid out on some old colour swatches.

Starter 18 Set

Our classic Starter 18 set, specially selected by John Hersey as a perfect starter pastel set.

Starter 18
Starter 8 Set, displayed in open box.

Soft Pastels In Action: Mixed Media

Watch Judy create a lively, abstract floral painting using acrylics, gouache, random mark making tools and, of course, soft pastels!

Read more...

Botanical 18 Small Stick Soft Pastel Set

Delicate yet vibrant colours for petal-perfect paintings.

$112.23

Botanical 18 Set

The purpose is to realise the light.
The heart of colour is light.
The dance of light is colour.

John hersey sifting pigment

John Hersey

A 30 year journey into colour.

John had always found inspiration in the clarity of light and subtlety of colour in Northumberland, and in 1980 he moved with Kate and their 4 children to an Old Rectory in the Northumberland National Park.

Introduction To Soft Pastels

Beginners Soft Pastel Tips from Rebecca de Mendonça.

If you’re new to soft pastels or have always wanted to try, this free PDF guide will help you Get Started.

This colourful guide covers all the basics, including what surface to work on, how to set up your workspace and how to clean and look after your pastels.

Rebecca then shows you how versatile soft pastels can be, helping you to master various techniques like Smudging, Hatching and Twisting.

Get The Guide
Introduction to soft pastels cover

Colourful Chronicles

Learn new techniques, hear artist's stories, and stay up to date on Soft Pastel News.

Colour Chart Guidance

We believe the colours in our web based colour chart are a faithful representation of our pastel range. But with any colours portrayed on the internet, there’s a whole heap of variables which mean that what you see, may not be what we see. That said, there’s some things that can be done to mitigate some of the variance.

Mobile phone and tablet screens tend to be pretty good for colour, so they’re always worth using, when viewing our colour chart.

We hate to say it, but cheaper computer displays, including laptops, can be rather hit and miss, in both colour and contrast, so they might not reveal the depth of the colour, as well as the true tone.

If you’re really keen on getting your computer up to speed on colour representation, you can use a calibration device to reach your display's fullest potential.

With all that said, if you think we’re way off the mark with any of the colours then, by all means let us know, and we’ll give it another shot.

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