Pastel References
Warning
Wear a mask please when working in a contained space with pastels - or any other dusty materials. Try to keep pastel dust from going airborne, so tap off extra pastel, do not blow it off (or at least step outside your studio area.)
Health and Safety
Small particles of everything is bad for your lungs. Older pastel sticks may contain heavy metals. Look for safety warnings and understand them.
Pastel Sticks
Artist Vs Student Grade - Generally these vary in the amount of pigment to filler. Student grade may also be made using cheaper pigments. Cheaper pigments may be less light fast. Some brands - Mungyo for example - make both student and artist grade pastels. Mungyo uses the ‘Gallery’ brand for their higher quality lines.
Some brands of pastels are sold in both full sticks and half sticks. The half sticks often have the benefit of no labels to peel off (big time saver!) Rembrandt half sticks seem to have a varnish coating on the outside. Take a piece of sandpaper to the outside edges to remove this varnish or the stick will be extremely hard to use.
Different brands can vary in the shade the stick looks to be and what color the stick actually makes on paper. Always do a test chart for your new pastels.
Different batches of pastels from a manufacturer can also vary. Never hurts to double check. This is more common on some of the boutique lines of pastels.
What my favorite brand of pastels? Pastel brands are like children. Sometimes I’m very pissed-off at one of them, but they may eventually reclaim a place in my palette. Current favorites include :
Diane Townsend Terrages - These are amazingly chunky pastels with a ton of pumice added to the mix. They are shaped like dominos. The pumice permits other pastels to be layered on top of the Terrages. Great for expressive drawing and working big.
Girault - Narrow sticks of color. Great for detail work. Easy to break if you have a heavy hand.
Terry Ludwig - I grabbed a couple boxes (14 pieces each) of factory seconds. I then figured out what shades I was missing and ordered 14 more sticks. Ended up with a great useful combination. The Terry Ludwig dark eggplant is often spoken off as the best shadow color (and it is a pretty darn cool dark purple.)
Mamut - Love these, but wish I had more. Their stock varies (as his collections sell out) as does the US to Euro exchange rate.
Do I need hard pastels too?
I like having a set of harder pastels for finishing marks. Nupastels are a great bargain. If I’m doing an underpainting I will use them to lay down color prior to washing the page with alcohol (please note that not all papers can handle alcohol or water washes.)
Do I need pastel pencils too?
I occasionally work detailed and would not be without a set of Stabilo Carbothello Pastel Pencils. These are not colored pencils - there is no wax or oils. Note that pastel pencils do not have the pigment load of soft pastels. They will also break if you look at them too hard.
Pastel Surfaces
Create your own
There are lots of recipes to create a surface for using pastels. One of my favorite is mixing Golden Paints Fluid Micaeous Iron Oxide with either their Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold or their Dioxazine Purple. Golden also makes a pastel ground which is used like a gesso. Art Spectrum has a full line of pastel primers - ‘Art Spectrum Colourfix Primer’ - in a wide assortment of shades.
Papers
Sanded Papers evolved out of sand paper. My favorite sanded paper - UArt - comes in various grits just like sand paper. In fact, their parent company makes sand paper. UArt paper comes in either a light cream color or a dark charcoal shade.
Velours are like painting on velvet. Pastels will respond very differently on velour than on paper. It requires practice, but is wonderful for soft edged subjects.
Pastel Papers include the commonly available Canson Mi-teintes and the Canson Touch. I like Pastelmat which is pretty close to a true sanded paper, and comes in handy pads of various colors which have glassine between the sheets.
Paper that is not specific to pastels but also work include Canson’s Sand Grain Dry Mixed Media (my current fave practice paper) and Rives BFK. Generally you cannot get many layers, but these are far better than other non-pastel papers.
Creating a firm surface to work
Gatorboard is what I use to create a rigid surface for pastels. It is a foam core product with the paper replaced by a rigid plastic. I order boxes of it precut from a four foot by eight foot sheet. I can use the cut sheets for mounting pastel paper, watercolor paper, or cover with gesso for acrylic painting.
Art Supply Com is where I buy pre-cut Gatorboard.
https://www.artsupply.com/foamcore/gatorboard.htm
I use 3M 568 adhesive film for mounting paper to the Gatorboard. Graft also makes a mounting film that works similarly (Grafix Double Tack Mounting Film) and may be easier to find.
Alain Picard has a video showing how to mount UArt sanded paper to Gatorboard using the 3M 568 film:
https://www.picardstudio.com/blog/2019/3/15/how-to-mount-your-pastel-paper
Storing Finish Pastel Paintings
Glassine is your friend for keeping pastel from transferring to other works in your studio storage. Static electricity is an enemy, so avoid plastics. Be sure to purchase only acid-free glassine. Glassine will generally turn to goo if wet, so water and glassine do not mix.
Where to Buy
Mail Order
Dakota Art Pastels
Good source for most brands of pastels and pastel papers. Great resource for samplers of both pastel sticks, pastel pencils, and pastel paper. I believe they are the only US distributor of Blue Earth Pastels.
Fine Art Store
I believe they are the only US distributor of J. Luda pastels as well has the only US distributor of Henri Roche pastels. They also have pastel samplers (use the search box and enter ‘pastel samplers’)
Mamut Pastels
If the US dollar to the Euro exchange rate is good, you might want to peek at Mamut pastels. These are large handmade pastel sticks, softer than Rembrandts, intensely pigmented. Surprisingly these ship rather quickly (faster than the US based companies.)
Amazon
Check Amazon. I scored a set of Schmincke pastels at a great price. Usually you will just find some of the more mainstream brands, but bargains may pop-up occasionally. However a box of Schminckes tossed over the fence was not the best Amazon delivery.
Local Sources
Check out your local art stores. Some cities will have better stores than others. Santa Fe New Mexico has a great store - Artisan Santa Fe - with a great selection of pastels. The big box stores (Michaels, etc) usually have nothing related to pastels. Dick Blick and Jerry’s Artarama stores will usually carry a few brands, but often no longer offer open stock individual sticks.
You may have a local pastel society. Sometimes they will have pastels from artist who have passed away or are no longer painting pastels.
I painted a pastel! Now what?
Storing Finish Pastel Paintings - I use sheets of glassine paper (acid free) to separate pastel paintings.
Framing Pastels
I’m pointing you to the Tucson Pastel Society Website for framing info. They talk about both the traditional way of framing a pastel painting as well as the easier passe-partout method.
https://www.tucsonpastelsociety.org/framing.html
Framing the “Traditional” Way
The traditional way to frame a pastel is a spacer between the pastel painting and the glass. The spacer can be either a mat or a plastic channel spacer. If using a mat, a gutter to hold any loose pastel dust is created by the reverse bevel cut of the mat.
Passe-partout Framing
Framing the “Other” Way - “passe-partout framing” involves placing the pastel painting directly against the glass.
The passe-partout method is hated by conservators and framing shops. However this method was used by Degas and his work is still around. I would not recommend this if you live in a humid climate. I live in a very dry climate so the completed “sandwich” of glass / pastel painting / backing has little moisture content. Once it is sealed with the tape, no additional moisture will enter the sandwich.
Richard McKinley’s Blog on Passe-Partout Framing
https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/pastel/pastel-pointers-blog-passe-partout-framing/
Rita Kirkman’s Open Studio - About glass and “Passe Partout” Framing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYepNK1_lt0
Glass for framing
Artglass is similar to Museum Glass in that it has the anti-reflective coating, but is thinner. I don’t use plexiglass. I have a local artist who sells cut sheets of artglass which makes it very easy. You can probably purchase glass through your local framers.