Sky set?

[SSB]

I wish someone would put out a 90 or so piece skycape set. About 30 blues, 36 from white to almost black, 12 violets, pinks and purples, 12 yellows and oranges. Anyone have thoughts on must have sky colors with brands?

[Lynndidj]

Mount Vision thunderstorm gray set is IMHO the best set out there. Can't do a sky without them.

Lynn

[SSB]

I do like the look of the set. I am using nupastel right now and I am not getting the results I want! Thanks for the reply!


I have been looking at several options and want to see what people say before I consider any more.

[allydoodle]

I second Mount Vision Thunderstorm Grays, it's a wonderful set. Unison makes two 18pc sets, Desert Sunset and Northern Sunrise. Ludwig makes a 14pc Sunset colors set. Another great gray set is Great American's 18pc set. I really find those colors to be very lively for grays, I can't live without them. You can see the colors for all these sets at Dakota Pastels.

[Jason1616]

Great question! If you are looking for blues, Terry Ludwig and Unison both make several sets of Blues. TL has a Cobalt set and an Ultramarine set, and Unison has a Polar Ocean and Tropical Ocean sets. I would go with one of those in addition to your Mount Vision Grays. That should get you covered.

NuPastels are considered a harder pastel. I am willing to bet you'll find you love the softer ones and how rich they are in comparison!

Jason aka "The Evil Pastel Enabler" ...right Chris?

[SSB]

Thanks for all the replies. I am looking for very specific colors yet a broad range of those colors. After looking it all over, what would make the most sense would be to get:

Art Spectrum: Whites and grays

Ludwig: blues (ultramarine and cobalt), true lights and intense darks 2

Mt. Vision: Blues and thunderstorm grays

Pan pastel: Grays

That would cover it for me. I do skies almost exclusively.

Problem is that is 454$ worth of pastel (cheapest at Blick by the way).

It simply won't happen. Too bad.

But it would be cool if there was a set like I talked about that was about 90 sticks. That could go for about 270$ and it would be ok!

Note: If price weren't an issue, Ludwig and Townsend had everything I NEED!

[Lynndidj]

You know, for the money the MV is the best value. If you got the thunderstorm grays and maybe some open stock blues and violets, you could do beautiful skies. I second that you need to move on from the NuPastels - they really are hard and IMHO difficult to work with.

Lynn

[SSB]

Originally Posted by Lynndidj

You know, for the money the MV is the best value. If you got the thunderstorm grays and maybe some open stock blues and violets, you could do beautiful skies. I second that you need to move on from the NuPastels - they really are hard and IMHO difficult to work with.

Lynn

The talented artist in the house uses Cretacolor and Sennelier. I use nupastel and masters. She does anything in pastel, I do skies and figures (conte or charcoal- whatever). I agree Mt. Vision is a good value.

I like realistic skies with naturally occurring beauty, which can encompass a variety of colors. But I like the ones that don't look quite as saturated to where one wonders if a photo of it is "real" or not. True and varied blues, endless grays and whites. Pinks, violets and purples. A bit of yellow and orange. I like clouds and blues mostly.

[saramathewson]

you could put your own set together. I don't have theMV thunderstorm gray set. i do have the Terry Ludwig grays and the 39 set of Great American Grays(they accidentally sent that one instead of the SW set and I decided I liked it so much to keep it, and still get the 39 SW set
but, you could do it from open stock with any of the brands you want. Say you want MV (great bang for your buck.) these have some great colors and can be used throughout the entire painting. i think they are a must have, and for their prices and size you can't go wrong. You could say get the thunderstorm grays and then get open stock sticks to your liking.

I just got the Terry Ludwg vibrants and cobalts and ultramarines. Plus with the grays these all can make fantastic skies. But, you wouldn't need the full sets of the vibrants for skies just a few different hues of some of the colors. i love to use softies for the skies like Ludwigs and Great Americans but that is my preference and MV would work great for this too plus be less expensive. I have been collecting pastels for several years now and have a pretty good selection of sticks. And yet there is still that elusive stick or that one brand I want. like I would love to get some Townsend Terrages and softies and the girault warm and cool set. and i have many of the colors in the MV thunderstorm gray set already so with my other gray sets I don't think I need that whole set. maybe a few of the colors. i would love his chromatic set. But, at this point, I can't rationalize spending more money on pastels until I use some of mine up!

good luck in your search!

Sara

[SSB]

Yeah, I have been searching the open stock on just about every variety of pastel and they are all pricey that way. I need to really pare down the selection and see if I can get away with less. I just don't think the effect will be the same with missing spaces...

Rembrandts could be a solution! I wonder who makes Blick's. I should try to save the best brands for specifics and get most but not all of my grays and whites from lesser brands. It is a shame really since the vast majority of my desired colors are tints. It ought to be cheaper!

Note: I don't mind the texture of hard pastel really. I just can't get the right colors it seems. At least so far.

[SSB]

The skies here are almost always cool blues in the clouds and shadows and warm pale blue pure color areas. The pinks seem straight pink and the sunset is naples yellow and what I would call mono azo orange. I need grays, whites and blues. Really nothing more.

[bluefish]

if you want to do primarily 'skies'.......pan pastels are absolutely fabulous for any type of sky......I used the various sticks, blending with my hands for many years, but now do all that and more with the PP tools......one of my PP sunset skies was selected for this year's vacation guide.....

check some of Susan G's work here where she paints skys and waves utilizing PPs.......really nice work and will give you an idea what can be done....

'blue ....

[japonaise]

Great idea to build a custom set! Blick has a 15% off with additional free shipping over $160. So, I just spent 30 minutes going through the Townsends, Unisons, and Ludwigs to build a custom "sky/sunset" palette that will be kept in tact - no searching through my pastel boxes and the set will be ready to go on a plein air adventure. Grand total for 48 sticks with discount and free shipping = $161.82. It's not 90 pieces, but it should work well.

[allydoodle]

Originally Posted by Jason1616

Jason aka "The Evil Pastel Enabler" ...right Chris?

Yes , you are !

[robertsloan2]

Originally Posted by Jason1616

Great question! If you are looking for blues, Terry Ludwig and Unison both make several sets of Blues. TL has a Cobalt set and an Ultramarine set, and Unison has a Polar Ocean and Tropical Ocean sets. I would go with one of those in addition to your Mount Vision Grays. That should get you covered.

NuPastels are considered a harder pastel. I am willing to bet you'll find you love the softer ones and how rich they are in comparison!

Jason aka "The Evil Pastel Enabler" ...right Chris?

Dude, we belong to the same club. Evil Pastel Enablers!

I love using Pan Pastels for skies. Grays alone aren't enough though. I like the Painters sets because they mix like paint, the violet tint, pure tone and shade is useful, both yellows and the red and the warm earths are useful in skies, Paynes Grey and Neutral Grey, both blues and Turquoise - I use most of the Pans when I do skyscapes and I've done good ones just using the 10 Painters Set because I was looking for convenience. 20 Painters would be the perfect set for someone who does a lot of skyscapes plus maybe 10 or 20 Tints. I don't use Shades or Deep Dark Shades as much in skies but almost all those Tints have wound up in skies now and then. Other than the Payne's Grey shade, that one's good in skies.

SSB - one other thing about painting skies. You get fantastic grays by mixing spectrum complements. Watch the Deborah Secor video on the Pan Pastels site or go to Artists Network TV under Pastels and watch her beginning pastels video (the one with the landscape with clouds, not the shadow of flowers on a wall one). I bought that video and it completely changed how I handle skies - my sky palette is now pink, orange tint, green tint, violet tint and keep mixing them to make vibrant colorful clouds, plus blue and turquoise tints for the bare sky between the clouds and pure tones in the darker parts of clouds with violet as a base.