Pastels come in 2 types: oil pastels and dry pastels. They are very different medium as dry pastels is more like chalk and oil pastels have a very creamy texture.
Dry pastels are a wonderful media if used as is, but they can also be used in many interesting ways into your mixed media compositions.
I like to store my pastels in rice to keep them cleanish, they are also sorted by color. When I work on a painting, I select a few colors and keep them in a bowl with rice.
Dry pastels are a great tool to try on a color or an idea on an acrylic based painting. If you don’t like the result, just wash them off with a wet cloth and try a different color.
Adding outlines on a watercolor painting
Dry pastels are great to add to watercolors, for outlines. If you think your painting is lacking a bit of impact, adding pastels will sure help with that.
You can also experiment with pastels outlines around figures.
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NuPastels have a rich, creamy texture that blends and shades easily. Frequently used in advertising layouts, NuPastels are stronger than ordinary soft pastels, which means less breakage and easier cleanup. Use them to create broad strokes and fine lines.
If you have been working with watercolors or acrylics and want to lighten an area, adding a bit of white or light pastel will work great.
You can add white pastel over acrylic.
You can also add white pastels over watercolor for mixed media techniques.
Adding water to dry pastels
This is a fun technique and you end up with something that looks a bit like gouache or watercolor paint.
Painting with gel medium over pastels
You can also try this, it will fix the pastel to the paper but it will considerably darken the color of the original pastel, but you will get interesting textures.
Painting with gel medium over dry pastels will considerably darken the original color.
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.
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.
I love your tutorials and blog so much! Thank you for your generous sharing. My question is, must all work with dry pastel be shown or stored framed under glass? I prefer to work on aquabord so I don’t have to frame, but would it work with pastel if it was sprayed with fixative? Again, just love your work and your website!
Thanks Jeanette 🙂 You could keep the work unframed and fix it with fixative. The downside is that fixative will darken your colors quite a bit, so you might have to make a lighter painting to compensate. I saw pastels unframed in a gallery a few times, they were on board and I am thinking that maybe they were sprayed with varnish. I would make small tests to see how you like the effect of fixative and spray varnish.
Kim
Thanks for your great tutorials, I look forward to reading them!
I paint mostly with acrylics using very thick layers of paint. I sometimes use soft pastels to create highlights across the top of the painting after I have otherwise finished it. I rub the side of the stick across the top, and the color catches only on the highest layers…when finished I fix the painting with a spray varnish or other fixative.
Comments (6)
Jeanette
I love your tutorials and blog so much! Thank you for your generous sharing. My question is, must all work with dry pastel be shown or stored framed under glass? I prefer to work on aquabord so I don’t have to frame, but would it work with pastel if it was sprayed with fixative? Again, just love your work and your website!
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Jeanette 🙂 You could keep the work unframed and fix it with fixative. The downside is that fixative will darken your colors quite a bit, so you might have to make a lighter painting to compensate. I saw pastels unframed in a gallery a few times, they were on board and I am thinking that maybe they were sprayed with varnish. I would make small tests to see how you like the effect of fixative and spray varnish.
Kim
Thanks for your great tutorials, I look forward to reading them!
I paint mostly with acrylics using very thick layers of paint. I sometimes use soft pastels to create highlights across the top of the painting after I have otherwise finished it. I rub the side of the stick across the top, and the color catches only on the highest layers…when finished I fix the painting with a spray varnish or other fixative.
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Kim for sharing , that is a great tip 🙂
Nicole
I love to read your email and this one with pastel is very interesting. I will try that ! Merci beaucoup Sandrine !
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Nicole!