Jack RichesonAssorted Sauce In A Wood Box

Russian "sauce" are pastel crayons that are a cross between something like a Conte crayon and pastel chalk. The colors are shades of grey, brown and bluish grey and white. They are made of Chasov Yar clay and industrial carbon. You get ten color-- Black, Gray, Light Gray, Brown, Gray-Green, Gray-Azure, Warm Gray, Ochre, Bistre, and White.These come in a wood slide box that does nothing to protect them from damage. Mine arrived broken in a lot of pieces, so I have small stubs to draw with; not happy about that. Harder to hold.There are some great examples of Russian sauce sketches if you do a web search. The effect is very good for shading and you can get some deep darks as well as delicate shades. Try these on tinted pastel paper.

Fantastic for gray scale studies

I like the selection of colors and the cute little box. All but one stick was broken. Not a big deal for me because I’m going to break them anyway, but if you are giving it as a gift the presentation is not pretty.I had never tried these before and wasn’t sure what to expect...I was surprised that they are super gritty and very similar to sidewalk chalk. They are so rough they scratched my paper