Painting Substrates - Pastels

Apr 19, 2019

Before dwelling into the substrates used for pastel paintings, A little basic introduction to the different types of pastels may be helpful.

Traditional pastels are powdered pigments rolled into sticks with the aid of a binder. These pastel sticks may be either chalk pastel or Oil pastels. The former have gum as its binder whereas the later has oil and wax as the binder of the pigments. These are then further divided into:

Soft Pastels: which contain a lot of pigment. Or

Hard Pastels: which contain less pigment but a lot more binder.

Soft Pastel Sticks (Chalk Pastels).

Oil Pastels: also come in sticks but they are harder and the binder is composed of oils and wax.

Pastel Pencils: You guessed it. There are also pastel pencils for detailed work. These are hard pastels.

Pastel Pencils

Pan Pastels: Just when we thought life was going to get easy, manufacturers came out with a unique product called the Pan Pastels. These are pigment rich cakes of pastels in a pan and unlike traditional pastels they are applied with a spongy applicator like make up on the face.

A Container Of Pan Pastel With An Applicator.

Substrates: Just like the watercolour substrates which I discussed in my previous blog, substrates for pastels also need to be acid free to be archival, so the best ones are made of 100% cotton. However they require a coarse texture for the pastel pigments to adhere to the substrate. So in essence all pastel substrates - which are mainly pastel papers - are textured but unlike watercolour papers, the pastel papers are also available in different colours and shades.

The softer pastels do not require a lot of texture so a modest texture embossed into their surface suffices. The pattern looks more honeycombed or pitted. Some papers like the one below ( Canson Mi -Teintes) has a smoother texture on one side and a rougher texture on the other side, allowing the artist to choose the side most suited for different degrees of details they desire.

Canson Mi-Teintes Pastel Paper

The following is a pastel painting, "What"s For Dinner?" painted with Pan Pastels is on the Canson Mi-Teintes paper. If you watch closely, you will be able to appreciate the honeycomb, embossed texture.

What's For Dinner, Pastel Painting.

For the pastellists, who use Pan Pastels, manufacturers have developed a valour paper that has a suede like finish. Unlike the gritty and abrasive paper which would devour the sponge on the applicator, these valour papers are gentle to these sponges and also allow several layers of paint to be laid down easily.

Below is the magnified view of the (Colourfix Suede ) pastel paper.

Colourfix, Suede Pastel Paper

This painting "Country Cottage" has been done on the Colourfix Suede paper using Pan Pastels.

Country Cottage, Pastel Painting.

The harder pastels require a coarse surface almost like a sand paper to lay down the pigment. This coarse surface is achieved by coating the surface with pumice, aluminum oxide or other abrasives. Blending the colours on these rough surfaces poses a challenge. The advantage of this type of paper is that several layers of pastel pigments can be laid on top of each other before the paper gets saturated. Since I do not paint with hard pastels, I do not possess any examples to display.

Hope you enjoyed this blog which gives you a little insight in Pastel Paintings. I would be interested in your thoughts and opinions regarding the newsletter/ blog and answering any questions you may have. What other art related topics would you like me to tackle? Just drop me an email. If you enjoy this blog, please forward it to your friends and contacts.

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Mohamed Hirji