What are soft pastels?

I recently watched a YouTube video where the guy kept referring to his Sennelier pastels as chalk pastels. Soft pastels are not chalk. Some soft pastels may contain a small amount of chalk or marble dust to act as an inert binder and to give the pastel some solidity but soft pastels do not behave like chalk. Soft pastels are mainly pigment plus binder. As a result, they produce highly pigmented marks and are excellent for creating expressive marks.

Materials I use

I use mostly Schmincke soft pastels on sketchbook paper. In the past I used coated pastel papers such as Pastelmat.

Evolving Soft Pastel style

I love impressionist art so initially I produced landscapes that borrowed something from impressionism. Here are some examples:

I believe in experimenting with a medium. So my more recent landscapes have incorporated a little minimalism and I’ve tried to give the landscapes more of a feeling of depth.

I’ve also experimented with different paper types. I’ve moved away from specialist pastel papers to cheap toned sketch paper. This paper is significantly cheaper and prevents me from overworking paintings.

Soft pastels are an amazing medium. But they are not the easiest medium to master. I will continue to experiment with this medium.

In the YouTube video below I complete a pastel landscape painting and ramble on about art stuff.

Original Art Prints Available on Zazzle

Prints are available in different formats: posters, acrylic prints, wood prints and stretched canvas. All prints use my original art work, which includes soft pastel, watercolor and acrylic paintings.