I ordered the eggplant color. I love it. It was my first Great American purchase. I really enjoyed working with a square format pastel, it was medium soft, leaning towards soft and makes some really beautiful marks.

What an absolutely gorgeous color (Valencia 390.0). It is the most vibrant and rich orange I've ever seen. I'm obsessed with Great American pastels. Definitely going to horde more!

Love the softness and color of this stick. First time using this brand

I enjoy using these pastels. Good colors, good consistency.

Great American pastels are my most used pastels. The colors are so versatile and the consistency is the best.

Hard to buy individual Great American soft pastels - grateful to Dakota for offering this invaluable service! Pastels arrived well packaged and thus not a crumb was broken off! And the colors - perfect!

I’ve recently started painting with pastels. I’ve been trying to use a broad base of brands. I discovered the Great American in my last order and just loved them so I decided to reorder more of them. I find they are wonderful and creamy….a lot like the Blue Earth but maybe not as creamy but very close. I love the straight squared edges for doing the sides of buildings and for making those branches or grasses in the landscape.

Buttery, a bit soft but nice color

These are beautiful pastels for the price. I’m learning that I love the square edge block pastels for certain techniques and these are just wonderful….not too soft or hard….just right.

Great American is creamy, has good coverage and I love the shape for edges etc. buy and enjoy!

I like Great American individual pastels, but a lot of the colors are not available anytime soon.

I don’t know why I bother with other pastels these are the most magnificent. Large size, buttery soft, and nice angled edges. Bravo!

Nice pastels. The color selection is very good.

For really creamy pastels, these fit the bill.

I have been using Great American Pastels for 14 years and they always produce wonderful results. The texture is very soft and the colors are smooth and intense. They remain a major player in my pastel palette.

I've painted with Great American Pastels for over 20 years and find them to be strong in color, provide smooth application and their size and configuration feel like an extension of my hand.

I have been using Great Americans for quite a few years and love the buttery texture. They will go over anything else you have built up on your sanded paper. These are my favorite pastel stick.

All your products are stellar and so easy ordering.

These pastels are beautiful. Painting with them is a pleasure.

For the quality, size and price, this is best value. Its not the best quality but its pretty good for the price. And its made in US. Definitely recommended.

I tried the Great American Patels because I could get individuals and I just needed a few colors. The colors where just what I wanted but I don’t like consistency. They don’t cover well and they almost feel wet. They don’t blend how I like.

Creamy, rich in pigment, perfect shape, and nice large size.

Overall, this pastel brand provides a creamy application, good value, and good price. The full sticks are large and the half sticks are actually more like a 3/4 stick. Color and tone selection is extensive and the colors are true to the selection key provided on the Dakota Pastel site. This was my third purchase of Great American pastels and I will continue to buy this brand.

I see more of these in my future. So soft and buttery. Perfect for adding final touches!

I just love those very soft pastels; they allow blending, fine work....details...And there is one white slightly, very slightly perlescent which gives gorgeous effects. The colours are really original, too. I've worked a lot with them, and they're first in my three favorite lines of pastels. There is just one problem. It's difficult to perceive the true colours on most sites, and (as I live in France) they're not easy to find. Anyway, thanks to Dakota for keeping an open stock, and shipping nicely!

I selected colors based upon the photo references and my personal needs, as I had never purchased these colors previously. Each of the colors was lovely and vivid. Great selections.

Great American provides an extensive line of subdued tints and tones that blend perfectly. The square form holds in the fingers with great ease for every type of mark from broad on the side to making a detailed line with the edge. I have both the "Mini Monty" (full line of colors) and from that am able to purchase the exact colors of this beautifully crafted pastel.

Truly lovely pastels, buttery, never scratchy. Lovely colors and range of tints. Highly recommend.

Great American are at the top of my list of favorite pastels. I like the size of the larger sticks, the fact that they have square edges, and the velvety quality of these pastels. They offer a number of beautiful and muted colors - which blend beautifully. Wish I had them all!

Brilliant, saturated color. Creamy texture.

I really like the buttery quality of Great American pastels, as well as the size and shape of the full-size sticks. I generally work on sanded papers, and they are soft and velvety to apply, the colors are rich and coverage is very good.

I like that it is a fat stick, it will go far. I don't like that is isn't very smooth, goes down grainy. I imagine it has to do with the color which is very dark, almost black. Overall I'd probably order again because I like the bigger size. Perhaps the lighter colors go down smoother.

The customer service rep I spoke to took his time to find just the right shade of dusky violet for me, I really appreciated his help!

I bought a few individual sticks. The colors I sampled were beautiful, but I did not enjoy the texture as much as my Terry Ludwig or Blue Earth Pastels.

Soft, buttery, intense, easy to work with and they don't crumble.

So, I wanted to try for the first time thees pastels and now have and for me, this is not what I want. I prefer still the Unison and Terry Ludwig. Blue Earth are 'nice' as well.

Great American has joined Terry Ludwig at the table of pastel perfection in my opinion. They are so very soft and buttery with beautiful array of colors. I love the try it boxes. Great price, great quality, and convenient packaging.

These have become one of my favorites. Very creamy, easy to blend, enormous number of colors

GA's are among my go-to pastels. The collection has great range and I love their soft and creamy consistency. I do wish that there were some way to compare different colors when shopping online; all it would take is a 'compare' button. It would be handy to be able to do this across different brands.