No medium is complete without the correct surface, however – and none more so than pastel. Apply pastel to the wrong paper and even the slightest touch will smear the delicate pigment everywhere. I do believe that this is the reason so many people consider pastels to be messy. Marry your purely pigmented little friend to the correct surface though, and magic happens!
Pastels are a wonderful medium to work with. You only need to look at Degas’s sublime use of pastels in his ballerina paintings. You can work them delicately or with boldness and the colour is always powerful. The pure pigment in artist’s quality pastels is a pleasure to behold. It is a pity then to use poor quality paper on which to paint. I have tried many papers over the years of varying quality. Recently I tried out two pastel pads from Canson. Their Mi-Teintes pastel paper pads and Touch pads.
Pastel pencils changed my way of thinking about creating and allowed me a lot of freedom, but I confess that I’ve always been a little reserved about trying soft pastels. My childhood memory of pastels involves chalky dust everywhere and a lack of control I was hesitant to repeat.
