SRJC Art Classes of Michael McGinnis

With soft pastel, the paper becomes the palette.

ecause soft pastel is a dry medium, solid colors must be scribbled or sanded onto paper and mixed in place. This is very different from wet media, which can be premixed on a separate palette, picked up with a brush, and applied as desired. Pastel is easiest to blend with fingers, although paper stumps, erasers, chamois, Q-tips and even makeup foam can be employed.

White paper is preferred in my class because color must then be achieved by heavy application rather than through scumbling (lightly drawing). A white drawing surface allows the work to illuminate from within, and requires the artist to create everything. Paper quality is an important element in creating a successful drawing. It must be able to withstand abuse, have enough tooth to absorb and hold pastel, be smooth enough to allow detailed work, and be archival. BFK Rives is a superior paper with all of these qualities.

Many colors can be applied to an area before blending occurs. This will create a thorough mix. The result is a new color with little hint of its source. But is there an order to what color should be laid down first? Yes, but it is complicated.

Some pastels are harder than others, even within the same brand. The harder pastels may scratch the paper, leaving marks of that color, which are difficult to cover. Red Nu-Pastel is particularly hard. In this case, it is best to apply it after laying down a softer color. Then a new problem may arise in that the harder color might become stubborn and refuse to scribble onto a soft surface.

Pre-blending can be used as a technique to maximize a smooth or creamy texture. To pre-blend, apply a base color to the paper and work it in well. This coating will keep subsequent colors from marking the surface.

Value is another consideration. Dark colors will lighten easier than light colors will darken. The base color value determines the overall tone. Clouds, for example, require a thorough pre-blend of white before any other colors are applied.

Which color to lay down first? A different green can be achieved if you lay down yellow followed by blue, than if you lay down blue followed by yellow. The reason is simple. Paper becomes saturated by the first color, so when the second is applied, there is less tooth. Also, because the first color is deeper, it does not wipe away as easily.

Sometimes blending on paper is difficult or undesirable, such as when details are being made, or when mark-making is important. The remedy for achieving a wide color palette under these conditions is to acquire a wide assortment of pastels. Manufacturers make sets with hundreds of sticks. Large sets are generally made from a small set of pure colors, or hues (say, 10 percent of the set) which are modified like so: progressively adding black makes darker variations, doing the same with white makes lighter variations. If both black and white are added together progressively, the new colors become desaturated, tending towards gray.

When budget is a concern, it is best to purchase as many pure hues as possible because black and white can be added later to create value differences. However, when adding black or white to any color, take care to avoid desaturating and flattening out the color. Keep in mind that those pure hues cannot be created from any desaturated colors. The reason black and white flatten a color is straightforward. Black and white are made from equal levels of the primary colors, so if you mix a yellow and a white, the result will not be a brighter (or more vivid) yellow. Instead, the lighter yellow will now contain quantities of blue and red as well, making it pale and a bit desaturated.

oft pastels can achieve the same level of intensity and visual impact as other media if it is applied densely. The number one problem encountered by students new to the medium is pale work. The phrase pastel colors has been hijacked by designers and paint companies to mean light and tentative. The name PASTEL comes from the word PASTE, not pale. PASTA has the same derivation because both pastel and pasta start out as a wet, doughy mix.