Learning to Paint With Soft Pastels – my journey so far

These are my initial impressions of painting with soft pastels, it is now January 19th 2021, I started in November 2020.

Materials I’ve used so far:

1. Paper

A pastel painting is just pigment sitting on the surface of paper, soft pastel painting is usually done on paper. The paper you use will partly determine the look of the final painting. Paper comes in two kinds – coated and uncoated. Coated papers have a surface that catches the pastel dust and allows you to build up layers of color. I am including sand papers in with coated papers. The coated papers I have used include:

· Art Spectrum Colourfix pastel paper

· Sennelier Carte Pastel paper

· Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper

· Uart sanded pastel paper

My favorite in terms of price, ease of use and color range is Pastelmat paper. One thing to note with this paper is blending, this paper really holds onto the pigment so blending is more difficult. I like the way you can build up layers of pastel on this paper. If you are getting started I recommend trying a few different papers at first to discover your own preferences.

Uncoated papers are cheaper but you can’t build up rich layers of color so I feel the final result can have the feeling of a sketch rather than a finished painting. I haven’t used any uncoated papers so far.

2. Colored or white paper

With soft pastels I prefer painting on colored paper.

3. Pastel brand

I have tried these pastel brands:

· Schmincke

· Sennelier

· Art Spectrum

· NuPastel

I prefer Schmincke.

4. Underpainting

I have seen people using underpaintings. I haven’t tried this approach yet.

5. Fixative