Pastel Painting Techniques – Five Techniques for Beginners
The Five most common techniques used in pastel painting are Blending, Scumbling, Hatching, Feathering and Dusting. All of these techniques are worth learning and many artists will to play around with them and develop with their own variations.
The Blending technique is achieved by rubbing 2 adjoining areas of pastel colour into each other. It is probably the most common technique which is used when painting with pastels. As opposed to acrylic or oil paint, with pastel painting the only possible way to mix different colours is to blend them together after they are already on the surface of the paper. This technique is used to make variations of colour, hue and also for shading.
The Scumbling technique involves gently dragging the edge of a soft pastel over a layer of pastel of a different colour which has already been applied to the paper. This technique can be used for many creative possibilities and achieves a grainy effect of one colour over another. It results in a textural effect and can typically be used to depict an atmospheric haze or mist. It can also be used to effectively and realistically to illustrate the soft complexion of skin tones.
Hatching is a technique which involves drawing numerous fine parallel lines on the surface of the paper; these lines can be either straight or curved. This technique is usually done with hard pastels or pastel pencils. Soft pastels are rarely used for hatching as they are too soft to accurately draw fine lines. Different thicknesses and spacing of the lines can be used to influence how dark or light the area of colour will appear. This technique is most often used to depict areas of shading.
Feathering is a similar technique to hatching with the difference being that much shorter strokes are used. The end result is fairly similar to scumbling and using it can give vibrancy to a picture. It also will also works well for an optical mixing of colour effect – this is an optical illusion where the colours appear to be blended together rather than being actually blended on the paper. This technique is particularly effective for creating iridescent qualities of feathers, fish scales; or for producing atmospheric lighting effects.
The Dusting technique involves holding pastel stick over a previously drawn block of colour, (which has been fixed with pastel fixative). The surface of the stick is then scrapped to create dust. A flat pallet knife can then be used to press the dust into the surface and further fixative can then be applied. This technique is best done with the paper laid horizontally instead of on an easel.
Although there are many more pastel techniques available; with these five techniques mastered, limitless artistic possibilities are available and you will be well on your way to becoming proficient in the art of pastel painting.
The Art Centre has one of the largest selections of Art Supplies in the UK including many different types of pastels such as Sennelier Soft Pastels. and Daler Rowney Soft Pastels.
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