The luxurious pastel stick Henri Roché, found at La Maison du Pastel in Paris, France, is something pastel painters are curious about. Recently, I tested seven colours of the brand.

While I was sketching and preparing the review, I found something really exciting about these pastels -- they allow you to layer and fix between layers just as Edgar Degas did! His methods are known, but we modern pastellists find that we have difficulties making his method work, as the pastel pigments on the paper tend to "melt" and "fuse" when fixative is applied heavily, or get "spotty" when it is sprayed on lightly, and the light pastels darken considerably regardless of method.

The Roché pastels remain almost exactly as they were when fixative is applied. Very impressive.

In the Review, I test the pastels on three different papers and show images with closeups.

Read the Roché Review here.  (Originally written for The Pastel Scribbler, the newsletter of the Pastel Guild of Europe.)