How to Use Soft Pastels

Soft pastels are like sticks or blocks of soft chalk containing pigments. They can be difficult to work with because they crumble easily and can smudge. However, they produce brilliantly colored works of art. Using soft pastels is closer to painting than drawing.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Begin with a sheet of paper suited to working with pastels. Tape it to the drawing surface on all four sides so the tape covers the edges of the paper, making a natural frame of white paper that will be revealed when you remove the tape.

2. Sketch the picture you want to create using a hard pencil and light pressure. The pencil marks should be completed covered by the pastels. You may need to use a kneaded eraser to pick up the pencil marks as you work.

3. Create a "wash" of background color by shaving the pastels to create powders and then rubbing the powders into the paper.

4. Layer the foreground colors on top of the background, using the pencil sketch as a guide. Use your fingers, a tissue or a cloth to work the pigment into the paper, and use a kneaded eraser to pick up any pigment that is in the wrong place. For smaller areas of pigment, use a paper stump to work in the color.

5. Use a black pencil, conte crayon or charcoal stick to create crisp outlines and dark shadows to finish your picture.

6. Set your picture using a workable fixative spray so the color doesn't smudge or wear off.

Tips & Warnings

• Clean your hands or change to a new cloth or tissue before beginning to work with a new color.
• Like watercolors, soft pastels are worked in layers from the indistinct, lighter background to darker, more specific foreground.
• Soft pastels create a lot of dust that will get on your skin and clothing and may irritate your breathing passages.
• Pastels can't be mixed, but only layered, so you need a lot of colors.

Resources

• For more tips on using soft pastels, visit Practical Painting.

[RoanArt]

on 11/23/2008 IMO this is a very poor tutorial and the writer demonstrates a lack of painting skills. There should be no "outlines", everything should blend. You create your crispness by using shades of light and dark, not by outlining. It's a painting, not an illustration.

Pastels are not "sticks or blocks of soft chalk containing pigments". They are pigments held together with binders.

Pastels CAN be mixed; they are mixed right on the medium you are painting. Avoid using your fingers et al to blend, you will lose the light feeling that pastels have.

Pastels are used DARK TO LIGHT, not light to dark, and background to foreground. Whomever wrote this does NOT know how to paint in pastels. If you really want to learn how to do it properly, I suggest picking up any pastels book rather than following this "eHow".

One should avoid using fingers or