Warson Soft Pastel Pencil, Black

A pastel pencil is soft pastel in a wooden barrel: the same chalky, opaque colour, but sharpened to a point so it can draw a line rather than a smear. It is what you reach for when a pastel drawing needs an eye, an eyelash, or a hard edge that a stick simply cannot give.

It works on textured paper — the tooth is what holds the pigment — and it will barely mark smooth stock. Sharpen it with a blade rather than a rotary sharpener, which snaps the core, and either fix the finished drawing or keep it behind glass, because pastel never truly dries and will lift onto anything that touches it.

Black is the pencil every pastel box runs out of first: the darks, the accents, and the line that pulls a soft drawing back into focus.

• Soft pastel in a wooden barrel — sharpens to a point
• For detail and hard edges in a pastel drawing
• Needs paper with tooth; sharpen with a blade, not a rotary sharpener
• Fix or frame the finished work — pastel transfers