Like most discoveries, this one happened by accident. I bought a Panpastel in black that I wanted to use dry, with my fingers in life drawing class for shading.
As it also happens often, my younger daughter Charlotte found it and tried it on her painting but with a brush and water, she thought it was paint. I was going to say “No, Charlotte! This is not the way you are supposed to use this.” but then I looked at what she was painting and thought it looked pretty good!
So I have been using Panpastel as paint for the last few weeks in my life drawing class and I love the effects you get. I also love that you can erase any area that you don’t like, or just make it lighter with a simple eraser. Basically it is like paint you can erase.
Here is how it works:
My favourite tools in class are middle toned craft paper, a fine liner, pan pastel, an eraser and a waterbrush. I will also occasionally use a white colored pencil or watercolor pencil for highlights.
I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.
Molotow Aqua Squeeze Brush Pens are great for coloring and painting. These sophisticated application tools are easy to fill with water, fluid watercolors, or inks. Mix your own colors, thin them with water, refill, repeat! Regulate the flow by squeezing the pen’s body. – Set of 3
You can use the top of the box as a mixing area to make a light grey wash.
You can see that the pastel does not behave like paint, it is more like particles in suspension but this is what will make some great speckled textures in your paintings.
You can use this light wash as a first layer to shade your drawing.
Then to make some areas darker, you can just pick up a bit more pigments with your brush and brush them onto a still wet wash.
I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.
Here are genuine artists’ quality pastels – the softest in the world – uniquely packaged in stacking and interlocking jars. PanPastels were specially developed so that artists could lift, apply, and control pastel color, just like true painting.
You get beautiful speckled textures that way.
They will still be visible once dry.
Now if you see that you made a area too dark, wait until it is dry and you can just lift off a bit or even all of the pigment with a simple eraser. I just love to be able to do that!
Here are a few drawings done using that technique:
Do you have any art supplies you are using not in the way they were intended to be used? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Originally from France, I have been living in North Vancouver, Canada for the past 20 years.
My work has been collected and exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. I am also part of the Art Rentals and sales program of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Many of my paintings have been published in Art books and magazines (Artist Magazine, Watercolor Artist Magazine, Acrylic Magazine, International Artist Magazine). I wrote 2 art instruction books with North Light/F+W Books.
I have been writing for the last 5 years for my blog: paintingdemos.com, that has a mailing list of about 10 000 subscribers and about 20 000 visitors per month.
I am an active member in the community, as a co-founder of the North Shore Art crawl, a co-founder of a weekly life drawing group, a board member of the North Vancouver Arts Council, and have been invited as a juror for public art, art grants and juried exhibitions. You can read more about my collaborations here.
You can erase watercolor paint too. You can scrub it out of paper with a wet brush or use a Mr. Clean sponge. It can be rough on the paper, but if your paper is heavy enough it should be fine. I use 300 and 400 pound paper.
Comment (1)
Paul
You can erase watercolor paint too. You can scrub it out of paper with a wet brush or use a Mr. Clean sponge. It can be rough on the paper, but if your paper is heavy enough it should be fine. I use 300 and 400 pound paper.