Paul Rubens Oil Pastels, 60 Colors Artist Soft Oil Pastels Vibrant and Creamy, Art Supplies for Artists, Beginners, Students, Art Painting Drawing

If you're looking for a premium set of oil pastels, the Paul Rubens Haiya Set 60 is definitely worth considering! The pastels are soft, blend beautifully, and are highly pigmented, making them a joy to work with. I’ve got the 60-colour set, which comes with a handy colour leaflet and swatch card (check out the photos). Each pastel has important details printed right on the wrapper: lightfastness, pigment composition, and opacity rating. It's a great feature, though I’d love to see this info added to the leaflet next to each colour for easier reference. One minor note: the colour code and name are printed on each pastel wrapper, but there’s a slight inconsistency in where they appear—some are on the top, and some are on the bottom (see pics). I'd recommend swatching all the colours first, as you might lose some of this info if the wrappers are removed. Overall, a fantastic set for both beginners and pros! ⭐️

Probably the closest to Sennelier oil pastels in a budget range. High pigment. Most colours are very soft. If you're layering these are great for the top layers and highlights. You will need slightly firmer pastels for layers beneath them to get the most from these great pastels.Definitely a must have brand.

Let me start this off by saying that I'm wondering if I received a box of used pastels, since almost all of the wrappers were dirty and covered in various colors. Perhaps they are hand packed and that's why they were so dirty. I'm not sure. What makes me a bit suspicious about if they were used, is the fact that some of the tips of the pastels looked used, smooshed in, or smaller than the others. Also, I'd say about 15% of the pastels I received were slick with oil even on the outside wrapper. It was so much oil it had visibly seeped onto edges of the plastic storage it comes in. Anyways, onto the review based on my initial color swatches. For the most part, I'd say at least 80% of the pastels have a very consistent smooth texture when laying down. Another 10% are very soft, verging on the texture of butter. And the last 10% are extremely gummy and hard to lay down. I suspect this is kind of normal considering different pigments require different binder ratios. My observations of gummy pastels are: 030 Red Deep 008 Bourdeaux (almost unusable it's so gummy) 222 Phthalo Blue 237 Ultramarine 080 Indigo Light 219 Celestial Blue 042 Cinnabar Yellow Light (hard to use because so gummy) 086 Phthalo Green Light 045 Green Medium (I consider this one utterly useless because it is so gummy--see the attached picture) That being said, most of these can either be mixed or have a color so close to it that you don't really need the gummy ones. I would say the exception is perhaps Bordeaux, which was a very pretty magenta leaning purple color. With these exceptions notwithstanding, the pastels have a lovely texture and make few crumbs. Other than receiving what looks like a used box of pastels, I consider these pretty high quality especially given the value for money for a set of 72. I bought them on sale, and I think it's worth it to keep a look out for that sale when possible. The white is beautifully creamy and opaque. I really love some of the more muted colors like rose ochre, violet ochre, grey green, blue grey, reddish brown grey, and charcoal. I could see this set being perfect for landscape, especially seascapes. Both are my subject of choice, so I am looking forward to giving them a very good go. I like using a more limited palette, so may narrow my color choices down to a smaller set of the best performing and most-used colors over time. Starting with 72 colors allows this to be possible! I may update this review after trying a few pieces and testing their layer-ability, color mixing both optically and with blending, how they do on thick paper vs. when it's gessoed (does the oil bleed through the non-gessoed paper? is gesso even necessary), how they do being oiled down with Zest-it clear painting medium, how they do with sgraffito techniques, and how they set up (how dry do they get? do they smear to the next page of my sketchbook easily or do they mostly stay put?).

Great pastels, soft like butter. I enjoy using them on slightly more rough sketchbook/ mixed media paper. I’m on YT and TikTok (Ania Marta Art). Im using gloves just in case. They can feel bit too oily, but spread on paper and mix very well.

I'm very pleased with these! They arrived quickly with no damage whatsoever. The pastels are beautiful to colour with and very soft so I can achieve a nice blended look. Some of the pastels had leaked a bit of oil initially but that's only natural, especially with specific pigments - all I had to do was wipe them with a tissue and they were all good. I bought these as I had watched a couple of reviews online and they were exactly as I expected. Excellent quality on a budget and the variety of colours is decent. Would get the bigger size for more colours but this is convenient enough and easy to carry, plus I can mix the colours anyway.

Love these oil pastels so creamy and easy to blend, I'm very new to pastels but find them a joy to work with have tried some other brands but like these the best, great selection of colours in the box , good value for money.

Got two duplicate colours. Some of the pastels are great others are much stiffer and don’t have a good consistency. Overall it’s alright but won’t buy again.

This is a review of the set of 72 Haiya oil pastels by Paul Rubens. Please note that the Haiya pastels are a new version - the older Paul Rubens sets are reportedly not as soft or creamy. There’s a great colour selection in the 72 set, whether you do portraits, landscapes, urban scenes or seascapes, there should be enough to work with. The pastels themselves are very buttery and creamy, I really noticed how different they felt to my budget-friendly Pentels. By comparison, the harder Pentels are much more difficult to blend. These Haiya pastels are messier but much more workable, they feel like paints. Also, my Pentels have a slightly headachey odour, whereas these do not. I like that they come with a blank swatch card for you to fill in with all the colours, and there is information about the pigments and lightfast ratings. A nice and useful set for those who don’t want to splash out on a pricier brand such as Sennelier.