How to get started drawing and painting in soft pastel.
Soft pastel is one of my favorite media. You can draw or paint with it. It offers the ease of portability and the simplicity of few tools. You don’t need water, brushes or pallettes. It’s just you, a stick of pastel, and your canvas.
For the most part, learning how to use pastels is just as simple.
To start you will need to chose your pastels. There are basically two types of soft pastels: soft and the harder varieties. You can see the differences between these two types of pastels here: i121.photobucket.com/albums/o221/alinasandor/SoftPastels1.jpg. The softer the pastel, the more buttery the feel and the easier it is to blend. You will probably want a mix of the two. The harder soft pastels are great for adding details.
You can also buy pastels in pencil form. These are less messy and great for detail work.
Don’t really worry about buying expensive fifty-stick sets. You can get great results from cheaper twelve-stick sets.
Blending is the key to your pastel color versatility. You can make almost any color you need by two types of blending: layering and smudging, as you can see here: i121.photobucket.com/albums/o221/alinasandor/SoftPastels2.jpg. When you lay down a color and lay another color on top you get a rich, vivid color blend. When you put two colors next to one another and blend them together by smudging them with your finger or a paper stump, you get a softer look.
The feel of your work is also determined by the type of canvas you use. One of the most popular types of canvas is pastel paper. Pastel paper is a lot like watercolor paper (which I use a lot), but with more grit. I also love using canvas board. No matter what you choose, the important factor is how much "tooth" or roughness the canvas has. The rougher the canvas, the more pigment it grabs. If you try to use a smooth surface for your pastels the colors will all stick together and become muddy. To learn more about paper choices read this article.
When starting your painting, start working with light colors first, then work your way to dark. Also, work from harder to lighter to avoid too much pigment build-up.
A word of caution: work in a ventilated area and try your best not to inhale the pastel particles. Many pastelists make the mistake of blowing the pastel flakes off of their canvas. This lets loose the particles into the air, making them easier to inhale. Instead, tap your canvas onto a piece of newspaper and throw the newspaper away when you are done.
From there, all you need is practice to become a great pastelist.
