Maybe its the slender profile, but it doesn't seem as though these little guys get the kind of respect that they honestly deserve.

These pastels are about the size of crayons (even a shade thinner, perhaps), so they are very easily controlled for drawing. But tear the paper off the side, and they lay down a very nice deep coat of color. The combination of depth of pigment and unusual control is appealing, especially for smaller work. The colors are quite engaging, some unsual, all reflective of endless decades making excellent art products.

Check out the spectrum at the top of the page. The red is rich and exciting without appearing articificial, the darker orange (what I had on hand) blended easily. No reason to douse the paper with color; it's easy enough to blend very lightly with these pastels. They allow the light (or dark) of the paper color to shine through.

Let's take a closer look...

That red is among the most exciting I've seen. It's rich and vivacious, but it's not so thick that it obliterates everything else in sight. When I finger blended across the empty white space, the pigment kept on going, but gradually exposed more and more paper. This is the way pastels ought to work. The darker area in the upper right is the left-bound blend of orange moving toward the red.

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