Drawing with Pastel Pencils for the First Time
Drawing with pastel pencils for the first time was nerve wracking…for about the first 10 minutes. I am now a huge fan! But my success with them wasn’t without a lot of studying (watching YouTube videos of my favorite artists using pastels). I wanted to take the plunge, but was hesitant when I’d heard of all the frustrations other artists had gone through. Thus, began the watching of YouTube videos.
First attempt. I should have added much more layers before adding fur detail. (Photo/Art Credit: Myra Naito)
Close up detail (Photo/Art Credit: Myra Naito)
Would it be enough to bypass the pitfalls AND my fear of color?
For those of you who have followed me for any period of time, you know that I’m a graphite artist and have been for the better part of 40 years. If you’re new to my work, you can see some here. Graphite is much simpler, really. White to black and all the shades in between. But with color, you can not only add white and black to it, which is simple enough, but you can also add other colors to it, from a little to a lot. Far too many variables for me!
Until now.
I tried my hand at color pencils, and I like them, but they take a bit more work. For me, the layering process was a bit painful. Painfully slow, mostly. And I also didn’t achieve much dimension, which was frustrating. I chalked it up to the learning curve of working with a new medium.
But with pastels, the layering process is so easy!
At least it was after watching years’ worth of videos! As I said, they helped me avoid some of the biggest pitfalls. Three of them, in fact.
- Not using the right paper
- Not putting down enough layers before trying to add details
- Not able to add superfine details (which I love so much)
The primary headache from these experienced artists was the paper.
When drawing with pastel pencils, one thing is certain. Use the wrong paper and you’ll never come close to the results you’re hoping for. Even paper labeled as pastel paper still brought more frustration to the pros than anything. Across the board they recommended two types of paper. Pastelmat or sanded paper.
They both have their own drawbacks. Sanded paper is basically a super fine grit sandpaper, as the name implies. Apparently, it works well, but reaches its limit of how much pastel you can layer on much quicker than Pastelmat. And, being a sandpaper, it wears your very expensive pastel pencils down much more quickly. Pastelmat, which I ended up investing in, is absolutely wonderful. You can layer quite a bit before it stops holding onto your pastels. The only real drawback is how expensive it is. It’s a UK product and apparently, it’s expensive for the UK folks too, but for me, it comes with an added shipping fee.
The second pitfall I sidestepped was not layering enough.
What I learned early on was you have to create a substantial “underpainting’ first. I also learned it was more cost effective to use pan pastels for this step. So, I requested a set of 20 pans for my Christmas/birthday present to get me started. Then I invested in two sets of pastel pencils (also not cheap). Drawing with color pencils isn’t hard at all. It’s just a matter of learning how to layer properly.
The first several layers are what will give your work depth and dimension. For example, it has to be dark enough that once you start refining the drawing and putting details in (like fur), it will not only show up, but give the illusion that there are layers of fur underneath. My first attempt went well, but still fell a little flat. My second attempt was much better. So, with a darker underpainting, you can start drawing in the fur in a slightly lighter color than the underpainting. Follow that by another lighter color, followed by at least one more lighter color.
The third pitfall was the inability to create fine details with pastels.
It’s true. You just can’t get the same detail drawing with pastel pencils as you can with color pencil. This is because of how soft pastels are. You can’t sharpen them to a surgical point like you can do with your color pencils. They’ll just crumble if you try. You can try shaving them with a blade (don’t use a sharpener or you’ll lose most of your pencil!). Or you can sand the tip to a point, but the moment you touch the paper, the tip basically dissolves away. With me being such a stickler for details…as in I have to put in all the details…this was going to be a problem.
The underlayers are not pretty. It’s just a matter of laying down enough color to make the details on top more noticeable. (Photo/Art Credit: Myra Naito)
Proper layering made all the difference. And color pencil at the very end allowed me to add all the fine details I love so much! (Photo/Art Credit: Myra Naito)
Happily, I found out that you can get as much detail as possible with pastel pencils and then, as a last step, go in with color pencil to add in precise details.
It must be in that order. Pastels first, color pencils last.
Color pencils are waxy. If you put color pencil down and then try to add pastels on top, it won’t stick. I tried this tip out and it worked like a charm.
The only thing that makes me nervous about offering to do pastel commissions is what has always been the final step for me. With my graphite portraits, the very last step was using a spray fixative to prevent it from smudging. There is enough movement in transit to smudge a drawing. Also, non-artsy people tend to touch the drawing. Instant smudging!!
With pastels, all of the pros have said to not use a fixative. No fixative???
Number one, it darkens the pastels. Number two, even though fixatives for pastels come in fine mist spray bottles, they still do spit out larger drops of fixative right onto your drawing. That spot can be a source of major frustration after all of your hard work to get the piece just so. That being said, I’m not sure what to do about the eventual commissions. I may have to purchase one which was recommended and experiment with the spraying part.
Having moved out of state, away from my hometown, most of my work will now have to be placed in the not-so-reliable hands of the USPS. In fact, today I received two damaged packages from USPS. One with a gaping hole in the side of the box. But even FedEx and UPS will still jostle packages around. And I can always tell my clients NOT to touch the work and put it behind UV glass as quickly as possible, but who are we kidding? Of course, it’s going to get touched! So, that is something that I need to figure out because until then, I won’t be comfortable mailing any of my work.
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