J. Luda is a father-son company and we are doing everything that revolves around the pastels. Father: Orbán Laszló, pastel/oil painter artist. Son: Orbán Szabolcs typography engineer specialized in color theory. We produce the sticks, the packaging, the design for everything printed. We are cutting out the small sponge holes that are protecting the sticks during shipping, we hand glue them together. We are folding the boxes by hand and packaging everything by hand also. We started manufacturing pastels for ourself. We wanted to achieve a material so soft that it can be handled with rubber brushes easy. When we had a small selection of 15-20 colors, other artists started asking about the materials used to create our pastel paintings. A couple of them tried them as well. Some mixed it with water, some mixed it with oil. The feedback was positive and they encouraged us to start producing more colors. We started working on our current selection of colors in 2013, and we finished the prototypes in the summer of 2018. We use only pigments with lightfastness ratings between 7 and 8. Our current selection is made out of 756 colors and shades. The history of pastels can be traced back to the 16th century, to Northern Italy. Powder pigments were mixed with gum Arabic and fish or other animal glue was used as a binder. Initially, they were available in three colors, black, white and red. At current time J. Luda Colors offers 756 different colors and shades. Following many years of experimenting, J. Luda Colors created its handmade soft pastels based on the 16th century techniques, using modern, synthetic pigments and focusing on the use of environmentally friendly compounds. We advise you to use the pastels with caution, in a well-ventilated environment. The usage of a mask is also recommended to avoid inhaling the fine dust produced by the pastels, as it can irritate the eyes and respiratory system.
The handmade soft pastel sticks of J. Luda Colors are extra fine, with the softness of velvet, have intense colors, all of which are the result of the traditional production techniques.
Each stick is handmade based on a strict multi-step process, which makes the production very time-consuming. Following the recipe, the compounds are blended by a mixer until a perfectly homogeneous consistency is reached. Following the mixing, the stick are shaped to a block shape. At this stage the sticks still contain humidity, therefore they are left to dry in a controlled environment for approximately 14 days. After drying out, they are packaged by hand.
It is only possible to achieve this quality and fineness by working manually. Due to the softness, and the minimal amount of binders, your colors have a guaranteed consistency and uniform distribution throughout the stick. Because of the creation process and the very little amount of binders, the sticks must be handled carefully, they can break easily.
The J. Luda Handmade Soft Pastel color system
35 colors, coded with numbers from 1 to 35. Each color has 21 shades coded with letters, with L being the main color.
From A to F there are 5 grey graduations of L, from G to L 5 grades White to L, G being the lightest, from M to V 9 dark shades of color L.
