Pastel Pencils - All the beauty but less mess

Author: Art Shed Team  Date Posted:5 July 2014 

How to avoid the mess of pastels using pastel pencils. A basic introduction to pastel pencils, a less mess way to use pastels.

Nothing beats the colourful brilliance of pastels but they're not always the cleanest medium to use.

Now you can enjoy all the beauty of pastel in a convenient, less messy form. 

Wood cased Pastel Pencils have a soft, powdery texture which produces a velvety smooth finish, ideal for mixing and blending.

And because they're pencils, they're clean and easy to control - although you may not be able to resist the occasional smudge with your finger!

Pastel Pencils can be used with Soft Pastel (or hard pastel sticks) for detailed work and finishing touches.

 

Advantages of Pastel Pencils - 

They are cleaner to work with, and, because they are usually harder than soft pastel sticks, they tend to keep a point or edge better for fine working.

In summary - more convenient, cleaner and capable of more detail.

DO the brands of Pastel Pencil differ?

The question most often asked!

Much of the difference lies in the colour selections. Generally speaking the different brands can all be used together, so a mixed selection of brands works quite well. A lot depends on the feel of the pencil, and only the artist can decide what he or she likes best.

Suitable surfaces for Pastel Pencils - 

There is a huge variety of paper and card surfaces that are used by artists for Pastels and Pastel Pencils.

Virtually anything that can be used for Soft Pastels can be used for Pastel Pencils, but note that as the artwork done in Pastel Pencil is often more detailed and smaller in scale than some Soft Pastel pictures, the preferred surface for the Pencils is often those of finer grained papers and cards.

The basic choices are Art Papers, Surfaced Card, or Special Grit Papers, but there are a few other less obvious surfaces like sandpaper, emery board, mount board and flour paper!


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