DRAWING WITH PASTELS METHODS AND TECHNIQUES : How to draw or paint with hard and soft pastels / oil pastels

Basic Techniques for Pastels

Pastels can be used in a variety of ways, outlined here. Each of these pastel techniques can be used on their own, or combined, to produce a pastel painting. There is no right or wrong way. As with so many things in painting, it comes down to what you enjoy doing with your pastels.

Choosing Your Pastel Paper

Choosing the right pastel paper to use with your pastels can be confusing.

Demonstration: Still Life in Soft Pastel

You may be surprised that there is generally much planning involved in painting. Several things must be considered. Follow along as we go through the process

Drawing With the End of a Pastel

The simplest way to use a pastel is to draw with the end, holding it as you would a pencil or pen. The resultant line has great expression, conveying a sense of the gesture you made.

Drawing Mountains in Early Evening with Pastels

This demonstration is based on a photo of the Taos mountains taken in the early evening from El Prado, a suburb in the northern part of Taos, New Mexico

Drawing with Pastels : Introduction to Wet and Dry Techniques

Wet or dry, soft or firm, pencils or sticks, pastels offer beginning students changeability of form, freedom from erasing, and delight in color mixing. In learning to handle pastels confidently, we bagan with several class skill practices. These were very simple shape and color blends to acquaint our non-art, immigrant students with blends, color layering, and setting pastels with water. Come along and join us in these practices!

How To Draw Using Pastels

On a recent trip to the beach I found a scallop shell half buried in the sand. something about the simplicity of the image made me want to draw it, so I took a quick snapshot for reference later.

How to Draw Grass in Oil Pastels

If you're doing urban landscapes with parks, fountains, suburban homes or townhouses, you'll need to draw grass. A bright green lawn may even cover a substantial area of your painting. How to give that lawn a good texture with some variations in color and shading is tricky. I've come up with a method of layering gestural texture strokes in different hues and values that blends together over large areas to give the impression of short-clipped grass.

New To Oil Pastels : Find Out More

Using oil pastels provides a dust-free way of drawing and painting with vibrant colors on a wide variety of surfaces.

Oil Pastels 101: A Comprehensive Guide to Painting with Oil Pastel

If you’re interested in trying artist-grade oil pastels you should either look for an inexpensive small set in one of the major artist-grade brands, or choose your favorite painting colors and put together your own palette from open stock.

Oil Pastels : Drawing a Female Figure Step by Step Tutorial

On this page is a step by step introduction. (This tutorial is written for beginners as well as more advanced artists.)

Pastel Drawing Tutorial – Pink Orchids

For this second pastel drawing demo, I used the picture of two pink orchids highly sunlit from the top left. The two orchid flowers protrude from the background which is composed of elongated leaves rising from the ground. The lower background is shadowed and makes the orchids stand out even more with color and shape contrast.

Painting Fur - A Step by Step Pastel Art Demo of a Lion Cub

Wherever I display my Art, people want to know how it was done. I am now putting together some workshop pieces to show how my paintings are developed stage by stage and the techniques I use to achieve them.

Pastels Painting Techniques

This pastel artists, takes you through every step of drawing and painting with pastels...and he is an amazingly good teacher.

Pastels: Step by Step Drawing / Painting Lessons

On the following pages you will find a great selection of step by step oil pastel painting and drawing demonstrations, techniques and tips that I am sure you will enjoy. The art instruction on the following pages has been generously donated by professional artists from all over the world. We are most grateful for their generosity and we hope you enjoy! Happy painting!

Pastels Lesson

All about choosing pastels, paper, and techniques for using them.

Pastel Artists Pastel Tutorials

Many of the documents offered for download from this page are presented in PDF format. To view a PDF document in your Web browser you must have the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader plug-in. If you do not have this plug-in, simply click to download and install. If you wish to comment on any of the tutorials, you may use the comment box at the bottom of this page.

Pastel Painting Step-by-Step Seascape Demonstration

There were two inspirations for this step-by-step pastel painting: first the visit to the dramatic coastline at Tsitsikamma, on South Africa's Garden Route (see reference photos), and second the acquisition of a set of Unison turquoise pastels.

Pastel Tutorial- How to Draw with Pastels (Grand Haven Lighthouse)

I am using Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils and Rembrandt Stick Pastels for this tutorial. The paper I am using is gray Canson Mi Tientes.

Pastels Drawing Page Step by Step

How to Draw a Still life in Pastels, step by step.

Plein Air Painting Demonstration – City Of Rocks wtih Pastels

Plein Air Painting Demonstration – City Of Rocks with Pastels

Seascape Pastel Tutorial you can Download

I find it an honor that other artists have sought to gain some insight into the way I work either through watching my videos on youtube or by emailing me and seeking my advice.

Selecting Colors for Pastel Painting

The quickest, and easiest way to get hold of a selection of pastels is to buy a ready-made set. All of the major artists' quality pastel manufacturers do sets (see Which are the Best Pastel Brands). These range in size from ones as small as six sticks, to large wooded boxes covering their full range.

Starting To Use Soft and Hard Pastels and Pastel Pencils

Soft and hard pastels have been around since the 16th century and have been used by some of the world's most famous artists.

Watercolor and Pastel Painting Demonstration – Let’s Paint Winter Snowwy Woods!

Watercolor and Pastel Painting Demonstration – Let’s Paint Winter Woods!

About Pastels - With more paste, less pigment can be added. Brilliance is diminished. Pastelists combine types of pastels, using soft ones for their brilliance of hue and semihard ones for drawing and detail. Soft pastels crumble easily, while harder ones with more binder are more durable. You have a choice between durability and brilliance.

An Introduction to Pastel Drawing & Painting - Pastels are a wonderful medium to work with. If you are used to painting in wet mediums like oils and acrylics then you should give pastels a try. They are a very refreshing and enjoyable approach to creating art. This article will introduce you to the various pastel mediums that are available as well as touch on a few pastel panting and drawing techniques that you can incorporate into your next work of art.

Before You Buy Pastel Supplies - Pastels are sticks of ground pigment mixed with chalk and gum or oil, then shaped into drawing sticks. Pastels cannot be mixed on a palette like paints, but are mixed on the paper by overlaying or blending.

Helpful Pastel Art Tips & Techniques For Beginners - Pastels are unique and versatile because of their ability to be used as both a drawing and painting medium. They are also unique because colors are worked and blended on the paper as opposed to a palette. Whether you work with hard pastels, soft pastels, or both, the following tips will prove to be helpful.

How to Use Soft Art Pastel : Beginner’s Guide to Soft Pastels - Soft pastel is one of my favorite media. You can draw or paint with it. It offers the ease of portability and the simplicity of few tools. You don’t need water, brushes or pallets. It’s just you, a stick of pastel, and your canvas. For the most part, learning how to use pastels is just as simple.

Introduction to Pastel Drawing Mediums - Pastels are one of the easiest mediums to work with and therefore are a very popular choice amongst artists. Pastels combine the immediacy of a drawing medium while at the same time provide the artist with a color rich, paint like environment. With Pastel drawing, there is no need to prepare your drawing surface, as pastels can be applied directly to your support. There are no harsh chemicals or mediums to be concerned about and cleanup is a snap! It is no wonder why artists adore this medium so much.

Different Techniques in the Art of Pastel Drawing - This article looks at a variety of techniques that can be used in drawing with pastels.

How to Draw with Pastels - Though thicker than pencils and markers, the pastel has many benefits when drawing, it's colors are vibrant and can create lovely textures onto the surface you are drawing on at the time.

How to Use Oil Pastels : The Basics of Drawing and Painting with this Flexible Medium - If you love to draw but want to get that look of paint, then oil pastels are the way to go. Here is an overview of how to go from drawing to painting with oil pastels.

Making Your First Pastel Drawing - Pastel drawing involves the use of a type of paint that comes in the form of a substance that resembles chalk. You can have hard, semi-soft, or soft pastels, and all of these are good for different pastel drawing techniques. If you are just starting to learn about pastels I would suggest trying the different types and finding out which one work best for you.

Pastel Accessories for Pastel Drawing and Charcoal - Using a few, well chosen pastel accessories with your pastels can greatly enhance the quality of your work.

Pastel Pratfalls - Twelve Common Mistakes Pastelists Make--And How to Avoid Them

Pastel Drawing & Painting Tips & Techniques - Beginners Guide To Pastels - Drawing Lessons, Techniques & Other Great Resources

Pastel Painting Palette, What You Will Need - Before buying any pastels, have you considered the type of paintings you're going to do? Will you be painting landscapes, still life or seascapes. Or maybe abstract, portraits or animals? You see, for different topics you'll need different palettes....

Pastel Tips Page - Short Pastels Tips Page.

Sketching Essentials: Drawing Pastels - Art pastels combine powdered pigment with binder and are packaged in an easy-to-use stick form. Despite the soft, powdery appearance of drawing pastels, the medium is actually opaque and capable of coverage over the darkest grounds. Look for the largest set of pastels your budget will allow because of the non-transparent property. Combining and layering pastel primary colors will not result in secondary and tertiary colors.

Stuck in an Artistic Rut? Try Pastel Painting - How an impulse to buy some pastels renewed my interest in art after 20 years.

Techniques for Oil Pastels - Oil Pastels may rank as one of the most versatile art supplies you can ever invest in. Almost any medium intended for use with oil painting will work well with them, and you can get effects similar to most types of oil paintings using those mediums on canvas or gessoed hardboard.

The Top 4 Pastel Painting Techniques - There are so many painting techniques; it's difficult to focus on which one to utilize and try when you're beginning. Thus, I've created a list of the top 4 pastel painting techniques to get you started! For most artists, pastels are a starting ground by which they learn to make and mix tones of colors for different shades. You can add colors and mix them to get the shades that you are looking for. As a result if you have already worked with pastels, this article may seem really simple, but continue reading it to get updated on what could be a basic course on using pastels.