Working with Pastel

Using Oil Pastel

Just a few tips about using pastel. When buying pastels try to buy reasonable quality ones from a known maker, the cheaper pastels are often two hard and not very nice to use. Pastels often come in round sticks which are great to use, but try to find the square shape ones too. A few ideas;

• break a square shaped pastel so you have a piece about 3 centimetres long,  grasp it between your thumb and first two fingers and hold two edges. A third edge should now point forward. Hold the pastel so it is vertical.
• place the pastel edge on the paper and drag it downwards. It will produce a fine line, twist is slightly when dragging and it will produce a line of varying thickness. In fact it looks much like a twisted piece of grass.
• place the pastel on the paper as described above, but this time as you drag it, twist it through 90 degrees to the left and then to the right. Try this again but add a little more pressure to one tip rather than the other. The marks you make can be changed into leaves flags or other shapes.
• try experimenting with holding the pastel in different ways and applying different amounts of pressure, it can be fun.
• finally, experiment not only with different coloured papers, but also with ones that vary in texture. Watercolour paper can produce interesting effects.

Pastels are not as popular as the traditional painting mediums but they have their own interesting qualities. Most people prefer to use the traditional chalk based pastels, but if you like a bolder approach with stronger colour, oil pastels offer an exciting medium to explore.

You can buy oil pastel paper or you can use standard pastel paper, but if you are just starting out large sheets of coloured sugar paper can be just as interesting to work on. I would suggest a dark blue, or dark brown paper as these provide a strong contrast, but a more subtle approach can be gained with the pastel coloured papers.

Oil pastels do not blend as well with fingers as standard pastel do, in fact they require a quite different approach. Usually, you can lay one colour down and work on top of it with another pastel, this can create an interesting blend. There are other ways to do this and the clue is is in the name sometimes used for finished pastel work;  a pastel painting.

It is possible to blend oil pastels with white spirit and a brush. The soft bristle brushes are best as you do need to press on a little to achieve the blend. With white spirit you can achieve some very subtle blends and interesting effects. Give it a try.

Paul Priestley art courses: http://www.paulpriestley.com