Hard pastels come in a variety of colors, but one of the common drawing tones is sanguine, my personal favorite. Redder than terra cotta, which is only a very dull reddish-brown, sanguine hard pastel leaves marks the color of clean red brick. It lends drawings on textured paper an antique old masters feel, and looks equally good on pink pastel paper (for a more feminine effect) and on varieties of cream, pale blue, and light brown. At its best, however, sanguine and sepia hard pastels may be combined on hot-pressed, off-white paper to produce sketches of great expressiveness and depth. Sanguine alone is particularly good for sketches of the male nude, lending the drawing both a tone kinder to flesh than charcoal and a masculine energy which brings the lines of the masculine form into a state of high aesthetic tension.