Raphael Brushes Travel Kit

It took over three years, at the turn of the 20th Century, to formulate the Sennelier range of Extra Soft Pastels "à l'écu" and thus to create one of the largest chromatic range of pastels. Throughout the century, this range of tones has evolved, but the heart of its making remains unchanged.

In 1949, Parisian painter Henri GOETZ approached Henri SENNELIER the famous artist materials manufacturer, about creating a wax colour 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 colour selection was expanded with the addition of metallic and iridescent hues.

Beyond these classic hues a selection of unique shades is available, and in particular a gradation of greys, 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 our company in developing an exceptional palette of shades.

The Sennelier oil pastel is a product that makes use of the components used in all Sennelier colours: top quality pigme nts, an extremely pure synthetic binding medium and mineral wax. The pigments are ground with an inert, non-siccative binding medium that does not oxidise and that has no effect upon either film stability or 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.

The Sennelier oil pastels possess an extraordinarily high pigment content, thus providing them with a high colouring 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-recognised reference.

The roots of Sennelier watercolors are to be found in the Impressionist school. At that time, painters drew their inspiration from nature and set out to reproduce natural light. Watercolor technique offered spontaneity, lightness of touch, fluidity and transparency allowing a quick translation of a particular light, vibration or shape. Paul Cézanne, for instance, produced forty or so watercolors of the Mont Sainte Victoire in Provence. Earlier on in England and on the Normandy coast in France, William Turner had turned painting in watercolors as an art form in its own right and had even managed to produce genuine masterpieces. Since then watercolors have become an established part of the history of painting. Artists love them because of their radiance and their spontaneity. It is such a pleasure when the painter plays with the light of the paper and the brightness of fleeting, intense pigments as they glisten, come together and swirl around under his brush producing a whole host of different effects.

A watercolor tailored to the needs of today's artists.

We spent a long time working with many different artists to produce L'Aquarelle Sennelier. We consulted watercolorists from all over the world. A panel of professional painters carried out "blind" tests on a number of formulations. They clearly revealed what they were looking for: a watercolor which is luminous, brilliant and intense. L'Aquarelle Sennelier fulfils their every wish.

A honey-based watercolor.

Honey has many virtues: a symbol of light and sun, an emblem of poetry and science and has been used since Ancient times as a remedy for dry skin and to help heal wounds. This nectar is used in L'Aquarelle Sennelier not only as a preservative but as an additive giving incomparable brilliance and smoothness to the paint. Always striving for excellence, Sennelier has reworked its watercolor formula with increasing the amount of Honey in the paint to reinforce the longevity of the colors, their radiance and luminosity.

Watercolors Made in France using traditional methods.

L'Aquarelle Sennelier has been produced in the same way for more than a century using the best pigments and top quality Kordofan Gum Arabic as a bonding agent. This mix of natural ingredients produces colours which have a smooth, bright texture and offer lively, colourful shades. The Gum Arabic and honey combination offers incomparable quality of application, producing superb washes. Then, this base is mixed with pigments and carefully ground. Sennelier makes sure to wet the pigments in purified water (with no mineral salts) for 24 hours before mixing them in with the bonding agent. This improves the way in which the colours and bonding merge together, in turn bringing out the full beauty of the colours.

Sennelier watercolors are ground in the traditional way using grindstones rotating slowly so as not to heat up the paste. This operation is carried out in several stages until the paste are as fine as possible thus getting rid of any particles which might impair the perfection of the wash.

This exceptional and very high quality watercolor will help you make your works even more powerful due to the liveliness and purity of the hues. The colours mix together perfectly, offering superbly subtle shades. These smooth, intense colours will be a genuine pleasure to paint with. The addition of honey will allow the tubes and pans of Sennelier watercolors to stand up to the passing of time and each time you will paint with them you will be able to accurately translate the diversity of light shape and hues.

THE SENNELIER GRANULATING WATERCOLORS

Among the 110 colors of Sennelier's "L'Aquarelle" extra-fine watercolor range, 36 are granulating colors Many artists today enjoy working with colors that show the grain of the pigment on the surface of the paper. This is the case with colors made with heavy pigments such as cobalts, cadmiums and real earths.These colors tend, as they dry, to shrink and agglomerate in the hollows of the paper, creating effects of matter that are accentuated on papers with a strong grain.The Sennelier range contains 36 colors that have this very clearly pronounced characteristic and that are identified with a marked G on the back of the tube.