What is soft Pastel?
Bright colours or dark ones, sparkling clarity or misty atmosphere, landscape, still life, portrait - I haven't met a subject, style or mood yet that can't be portrayed beautifully in pastel. (Dave Beckett)
Pastel is often described as chalk pastel which is not correct. These two substances are very different. The familiar board chalk is a limestone substance with lots of filler that diminishes the richness of color, texture, etc.
Artist pastel is ground dry pure pigment that is used as well in oils, watercolors, and acrylic paints. The difference is pastels are not tainted with fillers, etc. but mainly a pure pigment with a minimum of binder added to make a paste that is either hand or machine rolled into sticks & pots of different shapes, sizes and softness.
The pastel artist uses many variety of pastel brands each offering their selective color charts but also their unique quality of coverage to the surface pastel is applied. Some of the finest pastels are 95% to 99% of pure pigments which are expensive but exquisite, lush, and reflective.
You might wonder how pastel ages versus oil, watercolor, and acrylic paintings? Pastels have been used by many artists since the 16th century. You might say that cave man was the first to try out this chalky artist medium for their cave art. Pastel is the most permanent of all painting mediums because it is not diluted nor mixed with substances that will fade, crack, or darken over time.
Some care is essential for pastel preservation such as using glass with framing and not Plexiglas (static electricity). Do not place a pastel painting in direct sunlight because of moisture under the glass. When transporting your pastel painting try not to bang it sharply as this will loosen slightly some pastel particles. Always keep the pastel painting facing upwards when it is being transported.
There is a world wide revival of artists using the magic that pastels demonstrates in its exquisite qualities to please most any expression, subject and style. Pastels have a wonderful ability to blend and be used in conjunction with oils, acrylics, inks, pencil, conte, watercolor, etc. to make for multi-media paintings and drawings.
Art history demonstrates the art masters who have painted many subjects and styles in pastel: Rosalba Carriera, Watteau, Copley, Delacroix, Millet, Renoir, Toulouse Latrec, Vuillard, Bonnard, Glackens, Whistler, Hassam, William Merritt Chase, LaTour Chardin, Edgar Degas, Amry Cassat, Berthe Morisot, etc.
Books & website references I enjoy & find very informative:
The Pastel Book: Bill Creevy, Watsun-Guptill Publications, New York
This book has a variety of techniques to create different surface expressions. It even includes a section for using oil pastels. Excellent reference and ideas.
If your thinking about getting into pastel painting this magazine subscription will certainly inspire you. Features pastel artists from all over the world.
Came across this website from Timothy Daniels who is master pastelist. He was apart of an event in Canada called "It's not chalk" pastel symposium in April 2008 to demonstrate the three approaches (Old Masters, Modern, & Contemporay) to using color in pastel paintings.
