Description

Consisting of 42 pure colours (full tones), 40 intermediate shades going towards black and 121 intermediate shades towards white, Rembrandt has a comprehensive assortment of colours.

While not as hard as Carre pastels (extra hard pastels that are less brittle and produce less dust), and not as soft as some of the finishing pastels on the market, Rembrandts are known for their medium softness, their density and consistency. Often called “the workhorse” of the pastel category, this is specifically because of this density and medium touch.  Soft enough to easily release colour, but hard enough to draw a sharp line, keep an edge and build multiple layers, the versatility is nearly endless.

Crafted in the Netherlands on a very specialized small extrusion machine, these pastels are uniform in their shape and size and do not crumble, holding their shape.  The recipe varies based on the pigment used but is the most simple of any product in their range. Pure pigments, and just enough Kaolin clay to hold the pigment together, there is nothing more simple and nothing with as many possibilities as a pastel.

Because of the purity, and solubility of Kaolin clay, these pastels can be rendered into powder, allowing the artist to render a watercolour paint by just adding gum arabic, acrylic paints can be made by adding this to an acrylic binder, or oil paint by mixing into a drying oil, like linseed or safflower oil.

Colour chart explanation:

The degree of lightfastness:

• +++ = at least 100 years lightfast under museum conditions (157 colours)
• ++ = 25 – 100 years lightfast under museum conditions (61 colours)
• + = 10 – 25 years lightfast under museum conditions 0 = 0 – 10 years lightfast under museum conditions
• The lightfastness of all these colours has been tested following ASTM Standards D4303

Each Rembrandt pastel has a unique code that makes the colour range easy to navigate:

• The first three colour numbers are the colour indicator: 205 – Mars Violet (PR101 pigment code)
• From there, the pure pigment is indicated with a 0.5 suffix: 205.5, therefore full shade.
• As more white is added, the suffix number increases, depending on the colour, to 12.
  • .7-.12 = mixture with an increasing amount of white
• As more black is added, the shades are indicated with lower numbers, all the way down to 0.2, which is the lowest value Rembrandt create, available in 15 new colours.
  • .2 and .3 = mixture with black
• PY184/PY138 = pigments used

https://artsavingsclub.co.za/50-shapes-of-pastel-in-introduction-to-pastels-part-1/

https://artsavingsclub.co.za/50-shapes-of-pastel-pastel-surfaces-part-2/