General Pencil 4400-12A General's Pastel Chalk Pencils, 12 Colors, Multicolor, 7 x 1/4 x 1/4 in

They are awesome, great coverage, fantastic colors

The sharpness and hardness of the chalk-like pastel pencils are ideal in drawing detail. They easily and magically blend colors and yet can be erased well with the erasers on the end of each pencil. They have opened up a whole new world of art to me! It's nice to hold the wood of a pencil, to keep fingers clear of pigment. I only wish the pencils came in a nicer holder. This one is plastic and one needs to pop out the pencil from the back of the plastic holder so as not to disturb the pencil point by digging it out from the front. (But I'm sure this keeps the cost down, and I can invent a better holder.) The little pencil sharpener worked wonderfully well, which surprised me! I'm going to try to send my pastel "painting" to show how I used these pencils. It is my eye, somewhat enhanced!

I am an artist who usually uses acrylic and water color paints for my pieces, but recently I have been wanting to expand my variety and explore more mixed media avenues without breaking the bank, you know how it is – just in case I didn’t like it. These definitely surprised me! For the price, they are actually very smooth and hold their point well when sharpened. They are great for adding detail and are awesome for gradients as you can blend them fairly easy. They are very nice because I have used pastels in the chalk form and those are hard to get precise lines for several reasons – one being the size of the stick, and another being that they are not as dense as these are, so the color gets everywhere if you aren’t super careful. Precision is very important to me as an artist, especially in doing the style and kind of art that I do, there is little room for error. I can imagine that when I create other forms of art, precision doesn’t matter so much, but in this area, it definitely counts. There is a lot of detail in my pieces and these pencils are so great because you can add layers to make the color lighter or you can use a light hand to add subtle color to even the smallest of areas. Arrived on time and the packaging wasn’t damaged in transit. As advertised. Brand new in the package and sharpened nicely. Overall, I am very happy with my purchase and will definitely purchase this product in the future to use in the creation of my art!

This is the swatch test I did on these pencils. They are harder than other pastel pencils they don’t go down very creamy but the pigment is great especially on the black . You do have to press a little hard with them . The blend is great on colors similar like red and orange but something like blue and red turns a little muddy rather than turning into a purple . I recommend using these along with another set just for fine details or outlining . I don’t see myself using these just on their own . I think it is a great value for its price . The biggest downside is the useless eraser . It only erases the grey I tried it on the blue and the color didn’t erase . I am happy with these . It also comes with a great sharpener that works quite well .

Needed multiple colors for each person in my household, works perfect and easily erases when needed!

Smooth,not scratchy on paper.Also,like erasers on top of pencils and comes with pencil sharpener.Great pencils!

I love these pencils! I bought this pack to add colors that I use the most to what I already have. They are great. As with all chalk pastels you will have dust, but with these pencils there is less than with some others. I love they have the eraser on the pencil so easy to use. I use the hand held sharper that comes with the pencils and it works great. If you are careful you can get a sharp enough point to do even the smallest of things, like the eyes in my pics. I am a art hobbies and do this for fun since I retired and these pencils are a must have for me.

Over all, they are decent pastels, not excellent but worth the price. The biggest problem I've had is the black pencil. It was cracked up the pencil and looked like a glue was used to seal the crack. I was able to sharpen every other pencil to a point but the black. I couldn't even get a blunt end on it the core cracks and breaks off. I'm now left with a nub of a pencil that I still can't get a point on