52 Weeks of Art: Week 15

Week 15: Pastels

Welcome to week 15 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     

     Another week has gone by, that means another art medium to try. This week we used pastels. It's been ages since I used pastels. Last time I used pastels was in high school, so like 20 years ago. Now, if you're thinking that pastels are like chalk, you'd be wrong. Well, sort of. I mean, pastels do come in stick form and do kind of write like chalk. But pastels are not chalk. Chalk, according to the internet, is made out of limestone or gypsum and compressed into powdered sticks. Pastels are made from pure mineral pigments. So yeah, different, but similar. You wanna see some amazing pastel artwork? I thought so. Here you go:

Check out this beautiful painting here.

  

         

Here's an article about famous artists who also worked in pastels. Like this Degas. Beautiful.

     So, I pulled out my pastels and got to work. I have a set of pencil pastels and stick pastels. I used them on various different papers to see which papers I liked the best. Like always, I pulled out my cold press watercolor and hot press paper. I also pulled out some block printing paper and some black paper that is made for pastels. 

Here's my set of pencil pastels.

Here's my test paper using the pencils.

Here's my stick pastels.

Here's my test papers using my stick pastels.

     I didn't like how the pencil pastels looked. I thought that the stick pastels were much better, not as easy to use, but looked better. As far as paper goes, the cold press watercolor paper was the worst. I knew that it probably would be. It was just too rough. The block printing paper was a little better, but I couldn't get the pastels to blend easily. The hot press paper was actually pretty good, the pastels blended nicely. And, of course, the black pastel paper was very nice to work with. I wish I had it in a different color, maybe a soft gray. I did like how well the color "popped" on the black, though.

     Again, I am TERRIBLE at taking process photos! I am so sorry. I decided to try out two papers for my artwork this week. I used the black pastel paper and the hot press paper. Pastels are very messy, so I used some washi tape and taped the paper to a piece of cardboard I had laying around the house to make it easier. I also decided to make the same picture on both papers so see the difference.

Same picture, same pastels, different papers.

     I have to two papers side by side. I used the same pastels on each one. The one one the left is the black paper, and the one on the right is the hot press paper. You can see there is a huge difference between the two. It's not just in the color, but you can see that the pastels blended much better on the black paper than they did on the other paper. I guess what I'm trying to say here is, make sure you use the right paper for your project. Using the right paper will make a huge difference in the over all look of your completed artwork.

     Here's some close ups of the finished artwork.

Black pastel paper.

Hot press paper.

On to rating pastels...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for pastels, my rating is: 18

Ease of use: 4

   Pastels are mostly easy to use. It's trying to get them blended well that's difficult. I just used my fingers, but you can use whatever. They do make some fancy tools for blending, I just don't have any of those.

Affordability: 5

     If you're just looking to try out soft pastels, you can get a cheap set of them for around $6. If you're looking at going all out, getting the good stuff, you can look at spending $75+ for a professional set of pastels. You can use whatever paper you want to use, but I recommend you get pastel paper. You can get a pad of pastel paper for about $7. So, all in, on the cheap side, you're looking at spending under $15. I'd say that's pretty affordable for trying something out.

Accessibility: 5

     Any arts and crafts store should have some pastels. Also, Amazon sells everything.

Fun to Use: 4

     I am not really a big fan of pastels. They are messy. You get pastel dust all over the place. Your hands get messy. I don't know, I usually don't mind messy, but there's just something about pastels that I don't love. But hey, give it a try. You might fall in love with pastels. Who knows?

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!