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Pastel Pencils - Techniques
The ‘HOW DO DO IT’ Page
Some notes to guide the beginner
in the techniques for using
Pastel Pencils
First ….
some examples of finished work
This small collection of my own
pastel work is mainly from the
last two years and on Pastelmat
using pastel pencils and various
pastel backgrounds. The Image
of Staithes ( below ) is pastel
pencil on Lana paper.
The picture titles are ( from top left ) Brecon stream and brecon Dry Stone wall . ‘Beached’ a scene in Brittany.
and (bottom left) Pen y fan ( Brecon Beacons ). and View of Staithes, Yorkshire
NOW - Some basics
First of all let us look at the basic weapons used in this medium
Three images ..............
First of all
What a sharp pastel pencil does NOT look like
Second
What a Sharp Pastel Pencil DOES look like
and Third
What I use to get from picture 1 to picture 2
It seems obvious, I know, but if you had walked round classrooms as many times as I have and pointed out to
students (as many times as I have), that they will never get a quality result with a poor quality point on the pencil,
you would understand the reason for me making this note at the outset.
Using a blunt pencil is like trying to paint a watercolour with a yard broom
You need to have complete control over the mark you make, and you can only do that if you know exactly where
the mark is going and how big the mark will be.
Yes, I know that when you are laying down areas of background and putting down a base coat it is not so vital to
keep the point pin sharp, but keeping a good point is a very good habit to get.
In addition to the need to know how to sharpen the pencil to a good point, you also need to know how to keep the
point sharp when you are using it. Maintaining a point on all pencils requires a similar technique and I have
quoted the method elsewhere but will repeat it again here:
When using a good sharp pencil ( of any type ), make sure that you keep giving the pencil a slight turn as you use it.
This introduces a fresh edge to the point and keeps the working area of pigment in fine ‘tune’.
Constantly rotating the pencil makes sure that you are able to make exactly the mark you intend.
Remember though that you also need a waste container to put the rubbish in, and best of all, one that does not
easily knock over. I have a small piece of blu tac on the base of the table top pot I take around with me so that an
accidental knock doesn’t result a load of mess
Hopefully the CP addicts who read this will already appreciate the points made.
………………………….
I have been asked to go through the process, step by step, of sharpening a Pastel Pencil with a knife.
This is something I was taught to do many years ago by a superb teacher of Pastel Pencils, Colin Bradley, as the
first step in working with this medium.
It may seem to be very basic to some of you, but you would be amazed how many people I see working with
pencils that have virtually no point to them.
It is a sad fact that Pastel Pencils wear down more quickly than almost any other pencil medium, so you have to be
on the alert all the time to keep the point in ‘tune’. If you don’t, the marks you make will become wider and less
accurate. Colin always sharpened his Pastel Pencils with a single edged razor blade, but these days very sharp
craft knives are available which are much safer to use.
I start with a broken pencil.
For this I have selected one from the Derwent box - the Indigo , but the technique is the same whatever the colour
or brand !!! Some pencils are softer and require more care in cutting, some of the harder ones will take more
pressure on the colour core. It is a case of ‘know your pencils’.
I chose the Derwent to demonstrate this process as these Pastel Pencils are slightly softer than many other brands
so they need a little more care with the sharpening. Some of the harder varieties will take careful sharpening in a
hand driven spiral cutting desk sharpener.
1/ Note how I have the pencil held firmly in my hand
and I can use my thumb to guide the craft knife. The
grip is a balance between the thumb and the other
hand holding the knife so that movement is
controlled with care.
I am also avoiding any sideways pressure on the
pastel pigment core as the pastel is more delicate
than either a graphite or a traditional coloured pencil.
Too much sideways pressure is inclined to break the
point.
2/ The knife blade slices into the wood in a curved
motion.
I want to cut away wood without cutting too much of
the core away
3/ and 4/ I can work on round the point removing
wood and revealing the core which will be sharpened
up later
1
2
3
4
5/ So I now have a clear section of core and I can
consider bringing this up to a point - if I need a point.
Of course we sometimes use the pencil with a flat
surface to the pastel, and sharpening up to a fine point
will be quite wasteful of the media in this case.
I usually keep a good point on all my pencils though, as
they are mostly used to work detail after starting off
with woodless hard pastel sticks.
5
6/ To keep sideways pressure from breaking the new
point, I now rest the tip of the pencil on a hard surface
which has some grip. I have used a piece of scrap mount
board today to rest the point on.
6
7/ Using careful downward strokes, I remove
pigment as a powder and keep turning the pencil as
I work. This produces a fine point and a low chance
of the point breaking.
You can save the powder in little pots and use it for
the initial stages of a work, rubbing it into the clean
pastel paper surface, but I don’t bother. I have too
much pastel ‘bits and pieces’ saved already.
You can see that the final stage does remove quite a
lot of the pastel, though.
7
A correspondent wrote to me in June 2011, to alert me to the Derwent Pencil Sharpening stand and knife set.
These work well if you have a problem holding and using a knife as they provide a good base to hold the pencil
while it is cut with the sharp craft blade.
I take one or two with me on courses, and some people find them helpful, particularly if they suffer from arthritis.
I must admit I prefer to sharpen pastel pencils as shown in the demonstration above, it is just a question of what
you find helpful to keep a good sharp point on your pencil.
So here we have our box of pencils
all sharpened up
and ready to go ……
So what about Paper ?
There is a whole topic in this section on paper and suitable surfaces for pastel and you should read that for fuller
details, but in brief...........
The pastel pigment used in pencils is harder than the soft pastel used for centuries by artists. It is cleaner to handle
and capable of a sharp edge or point for detail. It still needs a similar type of paper to that used for soft pastels
Pastel needs a surface able to grip and hold the dry powder - whether from a stick of pastel or a pastel pencil.
Suitable papers are usually quite soft and have a rough surface - or if you are using a sandpaper type of paper it will
be able to hold the pigment in tight embrace and be even better at holding more colour.
For the purpose of this introduction we will be using a pastel paper with a slight grain to it made by Fabriano and
called ‘Tiziano’. There are dozens of papers of a similar type so there is no need to spend time and money
searching for this particular paper to experiment with... It just happens to be the top piece of pastel paper in my
store cupboard ! You will see it is coloured. Many pastel papers are coloured and you will often see packs sold in
colour sets. Using a coloured paper provides an instant background as well as providing an overall harmony to your
picture. This paper has a slightly ribbed surface.
Here on the left you will see a trio of soft pastel sticks,
still mostly in their original wrappers, in the middle a
trio of hard pastel sticks as manufactured by Caran
d’Ache, and thirdly a trio of Caran d’Ache pastel
pencils - more or less the same colours
WITH SHARP PENCILS AND PAPER TO HAND
WHERE DO WE START ?
Let us have a quick look at how the colour goes down on
the paper and what we can do with it.
First image is the dry pastel from the pencil laid down on
the dark cream paper. Note how the ribbing of the paper
shows the underlying colour through where the pastel has
‘missed’ - this is most obvious on the darker colour.
When you want a dark colour in your image, it does no
harm to lay down a dark foundation, and similarly when
you will be wanting a white in the final picture, a white
foundation will protect the surface and enable you to get
back to white later.
Slightly closer up photo, shows the effect of blending the
edges where the colours meet, with the dry end of a
finger.
This is just the foundation stage and we will be able to
apply many layers of colour over these first coats
See how the addition of another layer has intensified the
colours. The black is quite dense - even over the white. The
blue shades from light at the edges to darker blue when it
is over the black, and the white produces shades of grey at
the centre
My final photo shows the effect of adding a further set of
three vertical lines of colour in the same direction as the
original blocks.
Note how the white goes over the black line from the
previous stage. Some colour travels with the white and
makes it slightly grey, but the dense black has been
covered.
The blue in the centre returns the area to blue but picks up
a little of the black in transit
The final line of black is now very dense and the paper
grain virtually filled
What I am showing in the test above, is the way the pastel - even the relatively hard pastel of the sticks and pencils -
will blend and cover. It is an OPAQUE media. Given half a chance it will totally cover the colour underneath. Quite
different to the transparency of wax type pencils and watercolour pencils.
Let us now look at a worked example of a little still life subject and see how the working of pastel pencils develops a
picture
HOLD ON A MINUTE ! What happens if I go wrong ?
Good question, and one best looked at before we begin, so that we have the re-assurance and knowledge that
disasters can be (mostly) put right if caught in time.
As pastel builds up on the working surface it becomes more and more difficult to correct, so any corrections need to
be done whilst there is still some grain of the paper or card surface to go back to. Dense pastel which has built up
moves easily from side to side, but is very difficult to lift ( see bristle brush - below ).
The tools of the correction trade are as follows : Blue tac/White tack. Blue tac on its own tends to be on the stiff side
and white tack tends to be softer and stickier. A blend of the two makes an ideal lifting medium for pastel and a blob
of the mixture kept to hand is invaluable. Store it in between the fold of a small sheet of thick plastic or in a pot
which you can get your fingers into to excavate it. The mixture has a habit of ‘flowing’ if left for some time, so keep
an eye on it. I keep a bit stuck to the top of my easel and it is fairly well behaved there and doesn’t wander far. This
sticky mixture can be moulded into an exact shape to lift specific areas of pastel, and will lift pastel pigment from
most surfaces and absorb the dust. It also keeps your hands clean when you have been indulging in mixing the
colours with your fingers. Just keep folding it in on itself to reveal a new sticky surface.
The pale blue mixture will get greyer and greyer over the years but will still work well.
I have a blob that is around 8 years old.
I prefer the tack mixture to the commercial kneaded erasers though it has to be said that the Faber-Castell kneaded
eraser is equally as good. It works out somewhat dearer to buy but may be easier to find than the elusive UHU White
tack.
Another excellent pastel remover is the ‘Magic sponge’
sold by chain stores like Aldi for general cleaning.
The sponge is white and made from a very dense foam
which can be easily cut into strips.
It is very inexpensive and is also said to work well
removing watercolour from paper !
A craft knife can also be used to scrape away pigment, though care is needed that you don’t damage the working
surface and ruin the grain of the paper for working the correction.
I have seen books quote using a ball of kneaded fresh bread as a good correction material that will lift colour from
the surface, but I haven’t tried it.
I do keep a short bristle brush handy as this can remove some of the upper layers of pigment when the pastel
gets too built up
CAN WE START NOW ?
Let us look at a little vase as a subject.
The pot has a matt surface and delicate colouring so is very
suitable to show the benefits of Pastel for both still life and
portraiture
As Pastel is an opaque medium, I will also be working on a
coloured background, merely to show how well it works and to
point up the difference between Pastel Pencils and the more
transparent wax and oil based coloured pencils.
My paper is a 160gsm Ingres pastel paper and I am using it on
the smoother side rather than the ribbed one.
I have the paper taped down to a drawing board so that the
paper stays absolutely flat, and there is a sheet of smooth card
underneath the working paper so that any imperfections in the
board surface are not carried through to the picture.
I also have a sheet of thin paper on the top and secured along
one edge,so that when I stop work, the covering paper can be
brought over the artwork to
protect it from damage. It all sounds a bit of a fiddle, I know,
but you willsee the benefits as you work.
Here we have the layers - desk at the bottom,
then the drawing board
Then smooth white card, then the blue working paper,
finally the thin paper on top to provide protection
The board is A3 size
( for those in the rest of the world that is
16.5 inches by 11.75 inches approx ),
so the image I will work will be quite big for a little pot.
That will scan well, though, for showing you the working
process
And the final board looks like this. It is not necessary to tape all
round the working paper - we are not stretching it.
The top is taped straight across and the sides just have enough
to stop the paper moving about.
The white card is just visible underneath, and the protective
layer is folded back.
You can use a little bit of tape on the bottom edge to
close down the top protection if you need to take the work
somewhere to work on it.
The protective layer can be ordinary white paper,
Glassine anti static paper or even brown paper
- it is just that I had tracing paper the right size, to hand.
I have drawn out the image using a limited number of
colours.
At this stage I am just putting down the basis of the colour,
so I have reserved white for the areas that are light, and
the darker colours for the shadowed areas that I want to
keep more subdued. The colours chosen are White, Raw
Umber (for the mid brown), and sepia ( for the darks - a
very useful colour ) - these three provide the basis for the
inside of the vase. The Sepia used for drawing provides
the dark limit of the side. The colours for the outside of
the vase are White for the lighter side and a combination
of Purple and Magenta for the dark side. The darkest part
of the shadow has been marked in using sepia for now.
Notice that all the strokes follow the shape of the vase
surface as we see it. When shading in a curve, always turn
the work surface (and the reference) so that your drawing
hand moves with a normal wrist action and draws a
natural curve. It is much easier to move the paper around
than to try to draw a curve in an unnatural way.
Although this example is quite a large picture
(the image of the subject is 8 inches high), it took just over
half an hour to get to this point.
Pastel is very quick to do.
Using the larger pastel sticks or blocks would have been
even quicker, but the detail would have been more
difficult to achieve
When we work in wax and oil based coloured pencils, we lay down a base coat of colour in the same way and build
upon it. The initial base of the colour - the first layer - is vitally important in setting the tone and basic colour of the
final layers as the wax based pencil goes down in semi transparent layers and each layer builds upon the previous
layers.
With pastel we still need those first layers to set the tonal and colour balance, but rather than just building layers like
lines of bricks in a wall. Pastel also involves the mixing of the pigment on the paper, and we need that early
foundation to provide the palette that the detail is worked into.
A really dark area needs a really dark base. A really light area needs a base of white. Mid tones are less of a problem
as added white will always lighten, and added darker colours will always darken.
I have worked some heavier layers in with a Flesh
coloured pastel to bring up the lighter areas. That
top edge of the vase looks a little wobbly at the
moment but it should come right as the detail is built
up.
Notice that I have put some heavy vertical layers of
light pastel down the left hand outside and also built
up the right hand inside quite a lot.
Heavy use of a pastel pencil soon wears down the
point. So you need to be aware of two essentials -
1. Keep the point at a reasonable length and sharpen
up the pencil regularly to avoid working with a stump
of pigment.
2. Keep turning the pencil to get a fresh edge to the
point, that flat point is very useful to get a crisp edge
on a line.
You will build your own point as you work, so it is not
necessary to sharpen up the actual point with a knife
until you get to the later stages of the work.
3. A piece of sandpaper is useful to tailor a point to
an exact shape
Now we come to the big difference between Coloured Pencil
and Pastel.
No additional pastel has been added to the image on the left.
The difference you see is that I have applied a clean forefinger
to the pastel surface and rubbed it in - pressing the powdery
material into the paper as I go. There are those who
recommend using a paper ‘torchon’ or a silicone tool to do the
rubbing in, and these are very helpful in small detailed areas
and small pictures where the finger does not easily fit. One
benefit of using the finger is that the dry skin holds a certain
amount of powder which it picks up and blends.
CARE should be taken not to try this method with greasy or oily
skin as the rubbing in process will not work as well and the
pastel will absorb the grease and may permanently mark the
picture.
The next step is to introduce
some more colour to the right
hand outside and work back
into the lighter left hand side.
I will also sort out that wobble
in the top edge
Here you can see that I have
added French Grey to the
right hand side -
all the way down
to the bottom
Look closely at the base where I have now gone back in with the Flesh
pastel and Shaded OVER the French Grey. The Flesh pastel picks up and
merges the colours.
I can repeat this process over and over working from opposite sides until
the shading is evenly graded from left to right.
I can then repeat the process inside the vase and develop those ribs in the
pottery
and finally put in the sharp and soft edges for shadows and sharpen up the
top rim
And thus we come to a fairly acceptable image.
You will see that I have completed the shadow at the foot of the
vase. This had a first shading with Sepia for the darkest area of
shadow, and then a layer of dark blue over the top extending
over a wider area and then rubbed in.
Remember that shadowed areas are not black or grey (unless
they are on a grey surface) .
Shadow is a darker and colder shade of the body colour of the
area when seen in sunlight, toned down to a slightly cooler
version
I have sharpened up the edges against the blue paper with a
pastel that more or less matches the blue of the paper. This I
have worked in and ‘lost’ into the paper using a silicone tipped
colour shaper tool which enables me to get very close to an
edge.
If I were going to frame this up as a finished work, I would do
some more to the inside where the darker shadow is a little too
dark, but in real life, the ‘finished’ picture you see here looks
quite three dimensional.
Possibly not something that anyone would want to buy, but
that isn’t the point here !
In my original page here, I added some notes about Pastel pencil courses run by several highly skilled pastel
pencil artists. Unfortunately, over the years, the people covered in those notes have ceased to teach.
I have run some basics courses myself at Knuston Hall, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire ( UK ).
Those local courses have been successful, but not attracted enough students to justify the overheads, and it
seems likely that the last ones will run in November 2017. My suggestion is that you see if there are any pastel
courses operating near you, and check with the tutor whether they also cover pastel pencils. I have attended
courses of this type myself and taken advantage of the background teaching to work pictures in pastel pencil.
The picture below is a case in point, worked on the coastal path just opposite Padstow in Cornwall while my
Associate/Tutor worked a picture in Pan Pastel ( soft powder pastel ) of the same view.