PreMade Pastels

Most decent art stores will carry some sort of a selection of premade pastels. If you already know the specific colors you would like, you can also order out of open stock carried by some catalog companies. Below are a list of various Art Supply catalogs, many of which have websites you can go to also. There is also a listing for Koss Pastels. Koss Pastels are the brand that many of the festivals give out to the artists. They are very inexpensive - not the best quality, obviously, but a good choice for the cost effectiveness and the amount of space you need to put pastel on. Koss only sells by the case, so most artists do not order from them directly, but the information is included here for festival coordinators or for those artists who do want to order in bulk.

Koss International Corporation 3250 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 2150 Los Angeles CA 90010 213.383.2474

Daniel Smith Art Supply
1.800.426.7923

Utrecht Art
1.800.223.9132

Dick Blick Art Supplies
1.800.723.2787

Rex Art Supplies
1.800.739.2782

Walsers Art Supplies

Pearl Paint Supply
1.800.221.6845 x2297

Art Supply Warehouse
1.800.995.6778

Jerry's Artarama
1.800.827.8478


Pastel Making Supplies

Pigment Houses
Most of the suppliers above also carry some of the supplies and raw pigments needed for making pastels. Daniel Smith particularly is a good supplier. They have their own brand of pigments which are pretty good quality and are probably the most cost effective, even compared to the pigment houses. Their range of colors is not anywhere near as broad as what Sinopia and Guerra carry, but they have a full enough range that it is a good place to start out at, and as you get better at making pastels, then you can think about ordering more specific ranges of colors from the pigment houses.

Sinopia
A pigment house located in San Francisco - excellent selection!
1.415.824.3180

Guerra Paint and Pigments
510 East 13th Street
New York, NY 10009
1.800.598.6589

Other Supplies

With some items it makes more sense to purchase from some place other than an art store - usually because you put the word art in front of it, and the prices rise significantly! Items such as wheat and wallpaper paste, and boiled linseed oil can be found at places like Home Depot or other well stocked hardware/paint stores. One of the bext buys for Beeswax that I have found is General Wax and Candle Company, listed below. Most art supplies sell the beeswax pellets (pastilles) for somewhere around $13-20 a pound. From General it is more like $7 a pound for white beeswax pearls.

General Candle and Wax Company
6863 Beck Avenue
North Hollywood, CA 91605
1.800.929.7867