Pastel Basics

Getting started - What materials do I really need?

Everything you need to know to get started in Soft Pastels

Getting Started – What materials do I really need?

My advice to anyone getting started in soft pastels is “It’s all about the paper!”
You really need a good quality, sanded pastel paper to make life easier for beginners. It’s no use trying to learn pastels on an inferior paper that just gets you frustrated and wanting to give up.
So I would rather you save money on less expensive brands of pastel sticks and spend your money on the paper. It’s actually a good idea to have a variety of different pastel stick brands because they vary in hardness which can be very handy at times.
Just make sure everything you buy is artist quality.

Pastel Papers

Claire Fontaine Pastelmat
Canson Mi Tientes Touch

Uart 600
Art Spectrum Colourfix
Hahnemuhle Velour

How to work on different papers?

Ok so there are a few different papers as I mentioned earlier, and each paper I listed has it’s own use for different pastel paintings. They are all great papers and you will learn over time and using them which ones you prefer.

Pastelmat – Pastelmat is my favourite for drawing wildlife, due to it being able to hold the most layers of pastel compared to any other paper on the market, this lends itself perfectly for building fur layers up. However it is not the best for blending colours together.

Mi Tientes Touch – This was the first good pastel paper I discovered, this is the one that changed my mind on pastel painting. It has a light sanded feel and the pastel glides smoothly over it which is why I love this paper for when I have a lot of background to do or oceans etc. because it is the best for blending pastels together.

Uart 600 – Uart is very much like sand paper and comes in different grades of roughness, the lower the number, the rougher the texture. Due to the sanded quality, it takes pastel brilliantly however it can chew away at your pastels very quickly. The main advantage is that it comes in a roll, so is perfect if you want to create a painting that is bigger than standard.

Colourfix – Very similar to Mi Tientes Touch, although they do produce textured paint in the same colours, so it is possible to cover up any really bad mistakes using the paint.

Velour – An absolutely beautiful paper, velour gives your paintings a soft feel but it can be a bit tricky to work on, it really only takes soft sticks, not pencils and you need to rub in each layer as you go.

Pastel Sticks

My favourite pastels are Schmincke and Unison, but their are a number of others on the market that are very good. I usually look for the colour, rather than the brand in a lot of cases. So you really need to buy the colours you need, depending on what you are drawing. Don’t forget you can mix colours as well, so you don’t need every single colour you see in your reference photo, for example, if you need a pink, you can mix white and red.

Now we could stop there with the pastels, but I use a variety of different types myself so I will mention them, but there are many artists that solely use soft pastel sticks alone to create their artwork, the more you start painting you will come to figure out what you like to use in your own work.

Pan Pastels

These are fairly new to the market and you can quite easily create a painting just with these. They come with Sofft tools which are similar to makeup sponges, You need some sort of tool like this for laying them down and to be able to get any kind of accuracy. I like them because they are a very fine pigment which doesn’t fill the tooth of the paper much, so I use these a lot for backgrounds and blocking in.

Hard Stick Pastels

Hard stick pastels are limited to only a couple of brands, although they are handy to have in your tool kit because they are compressed into quite a hard pastel stick, which are ideal for finer details.

Pastel Pencils

I use pastel pencils the most out of all. But in saying that I actually use every one of the above types of pastel in each of my drawings. The pencils are the best for the details. Again colours are hard to pick because it will depend on what you are drawing. You can buy them individually or I prefer to have a whole set of my favourites (Stabilo Carbothello), but to start out I would recommend buying separately as you need them.

So I usually do the background in soft sticks, then the block in with pan pastels and then the face details with the pencils and I use the pencils and hard and soft
sticks for the fur, then finish off with the soft sticks to add
highlights and darks.

Kerri xx

I hope this has cleared up some mystery for you about the different soft pastels available and when to use each one, as well as what the best type of papers are to use for different styles of painting.

Right now you can join me for Coaching Week which starts on March 7th 2022 where I will teach you a lot more about soft pastels.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT COACHING WEEK

Kerri xx

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Categories: : art, beginner, educational, pastels