Conté à Paris 12 Count Sketching Crayons Set, Sanguine

Conte crayons are great drawing tools with consistent quality, and this is a very good deal in a nice package. The box has drawers on 3 sides that make it easy to find and store the sticks; the drawers are all well padded so that the sticks won't break until I personally take them out and drop them on the floor while I am using them (inevitable, I'm afraid) and the design is nice. It will be banged up and less pretty eventually since I haul it around a lot and I am not gentle with my supplies, but I do appreciated the effort that went into making the package functional and cute. There is a good range of colors and the price is good for this many Conte sticks. It was worth the tiome I spent searching.

The crayons are smooth and well-pigmented. They are a "classic" in my artist's toolbox and I was happy to upgrade to a set that included a range of tones, shades, and hues. I will continue using these for drawing and sketching. These aren't too well-packaged, and my first box arrived with cracks from the shipping process, and many broken pieces. I had to return to get a replacement. It's possible it got abused during shipping, but the foam inserts inside *should* be more dense to keep the crayons in place within the box. You might want to keep this in mind when handling and storing.

These squares are made with natural iron oxides, carbon black and titanium dioxide, but also kaolin plus cellulose ether. This set of 12 Conte is a very good deal if you want to save money and like challenges making life drawing for example. Sketching means practice and Conte technique takes time to control. Used already by artists like the incredible Seurat, the rendering of these crayons is simply amazing especially when used with toned paper with the white Conte crayons to indicate light. Each crayon is a square stick that you can use on all sides. Every rendering depends on the pressure you apply on the crayon to create values and volumes; it also depend on how you hold the square and the movement you effectuate. The key is practice practice and practice. Once you start to be familiar with it and that it becomes the prolongation of your arm then you do not want to use anything, but them in all colors: sanguine and bistre included. They have in case of a very informative and useful pdf on their site about how to use their products.They have three grades of black and this one is a HB. Try them and enjoy. Do not be despair at the beginning. It is just a matter of time and practice....again!

Superb product, but one star removed for production moved to China, where ethical labor practices cannot be assured. I prefer to use Faber-castell Polychromos hard pastels ( Faber-castell Polychromos Artists Pastels Tin Of 60 ), which are about the same price and are also lightfast, but Polychromos is apparently on its way to being discontinued (over the course of the last few years, the line was slashed from 120 colors to 60 and open stock has been eliminated). Polychromos is made in Germany, which is nice, but Conte has been making Color Carres Crayons for a very long time and I am more confident that they will still be around in twenty years. By using Conte, I probably don't have to worry about getting used to a new color line when the one I like just disappears. I like the colors in the Color Carre line, and they are rated for lightfastness, unlike Prismacolor NuPastel, which are slightly more affordable. There are many excellent pastel artists who use NuPastels, but I prefer to work with something that I can rely on (sometimes, pastel artists use hard pastels only for blocking in the base layer, a task for which lightfastness is less of an issue). Besides, I like the velvety feel of Conte Carre over the NuPastel, and there seems to be more pigment in each stick of Conte Carre. All-in-all, the Conte are very similar to the Polychromos, but are a little cheaper and will probably be around longer. I use a lot of Sennelier and Unison soft pastels and they layer beautifully over the Conte, though both are so soft as to make using the Conte Carre for final details a little problematic. It all depends on how you paint. Conte Color Carre Crayons are good performers as far as hard pastels go, top-notch really. I think that if you're going to spend this much on hard pastels, your only decision is between the Faber-castell Polychromos and the Conte, but the former line seems like it's shrinking every few years. At the end of the day, I recommend the Conte.

Very impressed with these “crayons” vibrant and excellent for detailed work. The set of 48 gives a wide variety of colours. Well worth the money!

Contés (Semejantes a los pasteles) de gran calidad. Son pequeños y finos pero cunden mucho. La caja es muy bonita y útil. Excelentes.

Não gostei, a caixinha, embora lacrada, veio amassada nas bordas e os bastões todos quebrados.

Conforme à l'annonce

Parecen de buena calidad, son para mí hijo y aún no las ha usado. Tube que devolver el primer paquete porque vinieron algunas de las pinturas rotas....deberían de venir mejor protegidas por ser tan delicadas. La devolución fue rápida y fácil.