Sennelier Oil Pastels 1
In 1949, Parisian painter Henri Goetz approached Henri Sennelier, the famous artist materials manufacturer, about creating a wax color stick for his friend Pablo Picasso. Picasso, a long-time Sennelier customer and a frequent visitor to their store across the street from the Louvre museum, was looking for a medium that could be used freely on a variety of surfaces without fading or cracking. Their collaboration produced the incomparable Sennelier oil pastels. Originally available in a palette of classic hues, the color selection was expanded with the additional of metallic and iridescent hues. Beyond these classic hues, a selection of unique shades is available and, in particular, a gradation of grays, required for a balanced palette. This evolution is the fruit of a long-standing collaboration with European and North American painters who have worked with Sennelier to develop an exceptional palette of shades. The Sennelier Oil Pastel is a product that makes use of the components used in all Sennelier colors — top-quality pigments, an extremely pure synthetic binding medium, and mineral wax. The pigments are ground with an inert, non-siccative binding medium that does not oxidize and that has no effect upon either the film stability or the surface. This base is then mixed with wax (neutral pH). The balance of this mix provides Sennelier oil pastels with a unique unctuousness and a creamy texture that allows for a great deal of freedom in pictorial expression. Sennelier Oil Pastels possess an extraordinarily high pigment content, thus providing them with a high coloring and covering potential, excellent brightness, and a high degree of light stability (with the exception of metallic and fluorescent shades). The remarkable properties of these components, along with their precise dosage, provide Sennelier Oil Pastels with unique properties, making the brand a world-recognized reference.
Note — To protect an oil pastel surface from dirt and dust, apply a fixative 8 to 10 days after the work is completed. The fixative will not dry the work. If desired, a final varnish spray can be applied to seal the surface permanently, but this may adversely affect future restoration possibilities.