ABOUT PASTEL.....

 

Pastel has been used as a drawing and painting medium for more than two hundred years.  Finely ground pigments--the same pigments used in oil painting--are mixed with just enough binder to hold their shape, then rolled into sticks and sometimes wrapped in paper for easier handling.

Pastels can be thickly layered over each other to make new colors and to create painterly effects; they can  be thinned with water or turpentine;  they can be applied in long or short strokes, blended or not.  In fact, they are so versatile that it is often difficult to distinguish a pastel painting from an oil painting.

Pastels are made in a wide range of hardness.  The hardest ones resemble pencil density, while the softest ones are like sticks of melting butter.  "Soft pastels" are not the same as "oil pastels"--they use a different binder and are infinitely more "smudgeable."  Although some people equate them to chalk, they are a different chemical mixture.

The painting or drawing surface may be of paper (usually with a bit of texture, or "tooth," to hold the grains of pigment), board (usually treated with gesso and/or a grit to provide tooth), canvas or wood. 

Most artists have a strong preference about spraying a painting with a light coat of fixative to keep the excess particles from falling off (I usually spray one light coat before framing).   Shaking or tapping the work before matting will also dislodge any loose pigment.  There is no possibility, however, of the majority of the particles falling off the surface, any more than pencil marks would fall off   paper over time.

Because pastel will smear if rubbed, and the painting surface will absorb moisture from the atmosphere, it is highly recommended that paintings be framed under glass.  They are usually matted (often with a barrier space to catch any falling particles), but sometimes they are framed without a mat but with a thin almost invisible spacer between the glass and the work.  A properly protected pastel can (and has) lasted for hundreds of years!