Pastel pencils are a similar story in terms of choices. Different ranges of colour, more or less pigment, more or less soft, different shapes and so on. With any of the makes it can be very helpful to get a colour chart to guide you along your way!Ī very good starting point might be the Rembrandt soft pastel basic starter set or the Unison soft pastel half stick landscape set.Īs a general rule, higher priced soft pastels tend to have more pure pigment and there are obvious benefits with that come with that.Įach make and type of pastel will feel slightly different. Unison, Rembrandt and Sennelier have many pastel sets (including starter and half stick sets). What to Buy?Īs I’ve said my personal weapons of choice are soft pastels with some hard pastels thrown in. So there is a lot to think about moving forwards with pastels. Here is a very small range of marks to show you what I mean. There are SO many ways a soft pastel stick can be used.
It is often said that ‘you draw’ with pastels, you do not paint! I personally disagree with this. Creating Different Effects with Soft Pastels: Very often picking the appropriate pastel stick from within the right colour range will achieve what you need. You can do some optical mixing with layers (or blending). The main reason for this is that, unlike paint, you really don’t mix pastels to lighten, darken or change hue. Unfortunately, the shape of the pastel gives no clue to it’s softness so the only way to really get to tell the difference is to try out a variety of makes.Īs you can see from the variety of pastels available, the colour ranges for pastels are extensive. Soft pastels are also the easiest to blend, the easiest to layer colours on top of one another and will cover larger areas the most quickly.Ĭonfusingly some soft pastels, for example Rembrandt, are a harder type of soft pastel. Being so intense and opaque, the colours will cover dark surfaces without losing their vibrancy. This means the colours are more vibrant and intense and it’s this quality that draws so many artists to use them.īecause of their soft nature, it’s extremely easy to apply lots of colour quite quickly to the paper. Soft pastels contain more pigment and less binder compared to hard pastels and pastel pencils. Makes including Inscribe Gallery ,Caran D’Ache Neopastel and Newcolour II Why I use Soft Pastels: Due to the wet nature of the medium, it is also possible to mix oil pastels. Oil-based colours are generally more intense.
Oil Pastels – These pastels use wet binders, such as oils, to collect the pigment into a solid stick. Makes including Conte, Caran D’ache, Derwent, Stabilo and Cretacolour