Pastel painting: technique, effects and features of working with pastel

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Pastel painting is a gentle and sophisticated direction in fine arts. Making drawings in this technique is quite simple, it is important to choose high-quality material. The colors are pure, fresh, and shading makes the paintings even more tender and touching.

Features of this direction

Effects in pastel painting are characterized by soft transitions, purity of color, pleasant velvety surface, but artists must have a high level of skill, because if done carelessly, this technique will lose its charm and sophistication. Pastel is a cross between drawing and painting, so you can draw lines, strokes and shading with it.

This direction in painting requires precise strokes and lines. The master must have a subtle artistic flair to find the perfect combination of colors, because it will be very difficult to change them. The famous effects in pastel painting are the shimmering glow of tone, the amazing ability to blend and blend colors.

When creating a masterpiece, there must be perfect lighting, becausethe play of colors in the picture depends on the intensity and direction of the light. This is what pastel painting is all about. Such paintings cause admiration and a desire to view them in different degrees of illumination.

Varieties of material

For pastel painting, you need to choose a certain material so that you get a beautiful picture. There are three types of pastel:

• oil;
• wax;
• dry.

Both oil and dry pastels are made by pressing. Only linseed oil and pigment are added to the oil base, and high quality wax with the addition of pigments is added to the wax base.

Oil pastel is used for teaching purposes, the dry version is suitable for teaching and artistic purposes. When drawing with dry pastels, the shading method is used, which allows you to create smooth transitions and delicate shades.

This version of pastels exists in two types: hard and soft. Soft consists of pure pigments and a small amount of a binder. It is convenient for her to make wide strokes of saturated color. Hard crayons are less likely to break because they contain a large amount of binder. It is convenient to create a drawing with them, because you can make both a tone and a drawing of fine details.

For pastel painting, you need to choose the right paper. For this, colored pastel paper is usually used. The tone of the paper must be selected taking into account the characteristics of the pattern. Why not use white paper? Because it is more difficult to assess the saturation of the mainflowers.

There are three types of paper for pastel drawing:

• sandpaper - it is used to create artwork, it can be purchased in large format;
• pastel board - consists of small pieces of cork;
• velvet paper.

To protect the pastel pattern from shedding, it is fixed with regular hairspray or a special fixative. Colors become softer and deeper.

Shading

Pastel painting uses shading to create soft transitions between colors and smooth lines. Its main purpose is to evenly distribute the color. For shading, the artist uses a rag, fingertips or feather.

Using this technique, the master can create a smooth border by muting the intensity of the color. This is a basic technique in pastel painting, it is easy to perform. The artist creates a drawing and starts rubbing the strokes, and then overlays more saturated color pigments over the shading.

Finger blending and smudge over blending

In pastel painting, shading with fingers is often used. If you are working with a large surface, then spread the pigment with fingers pressed together. If the drawing is small, then fingertips are enough for this. The most important thing is to be sure to wash off the color after each shading to avoid dirt.

Layers of pastels of different colors can be superimposed on each otherfriend, but keep in mind that the richer the bottom background, the shade of the top layer will differ from the original. To prevent this, feather the bottom layer, and then proceed to apply another pigment.

Clean up

This technique in pastel painting should be used as little as possible because it can cause the colors to be less intense. An eraser is used for cleaning, but if it is not used correctly, the surface can be damaged, as a result, the pastel will lie unevenly.

Prepare the area for correction. Wipe it with cotton wool or a cloth, removing some of the pigment. Then you can use the eraser. It does not need to be pressed hard so as not to damage the surface of the pattern. If you follow these recommendations, you will be able to carefully adjust the drawing.

Lines and spots

In the technique of pastel painting, you need to pay special attention to lines and spots. They can be intermittent, simple, which emphasize the contour, or more complex, creating shapes and volume. The artist must carefully choose the shape of lines and spots in order to accurately convey his idea.

To create them, you need to use a pastel block and draw with it at a certain angle or flat. If the artist chooses the second option, then he will get strokes equal to the width of the bar.

To draw lines, the master uses hard pastel. The chalk is placed with an edge and a line is drawn - it turns outperfectly straight. You can also use soft pastel, only the stroke width will be larger.

The most advanced pastel painters use splashes of solid color and minimal shading. This is due to the fact that feathering dulls the saturation of the color, and this is not liked by some artists. That is why many people use non-blended spots, which perfectly convey the purity and brightness of the color.

There is a special technique in pastel painting, in which masters do not use shading at all, but create a picture from pure spots. When viewed closely, they seem to be an abstraction, but if you step back, the viewer will see a solid canvas.

A Brief History

The name "pastel" comes from the word "a pastello", which meant drawing with a black Italian pencil and sanguine. In the XVIII century, this technique became popular, it was widely used in France and England. Famous pastel artists were Francois Boucher, Chardin, Delacroix and others.

Gradually its popularity decreased somewhat, but the pastel became again interesting to artists in the second half of the 19th century. Pastel was actively used in the work of the Impressionists, because it made it possible to obtain pure and beautiful colors. The Impressionists created amazingly delicate, translucent paintings.

In Russian fine arts

In Russia, pastel began to be used at the beginning of the 18th century thanks to foreign artists. ATAt the beginning, only foreign masters painted, who performed works to order. Famous artists of pastel painting in Russia were Karl-Wilhelm Bardu, who painted portraits in this technique; it was also used by Alexander Orlovsky and Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov and other masters. This trend in visual arts has created amazing landscapes with pure colors and soft lines.