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The Neglected Medium?
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Message
Posted
Syd. I usually recycle big boxes for pastel protection but don't ask me to look at set squares!!!!!!!! That's technology to me! L.O.L. As for patience, well I am not good at packaging anything, more's the pity. When I have sent pastels off somewhere though, I do take extra care and I am sure receivers have had quite a struggle getting the wrapping off when I have finished with it.
Posted
The original post is quite old now and this thread may be dead but I’ll start this by saying—as have others—I’m no pastel expert but . . .
I use pastels mainly for en plein aire sketching, simply for their convenience. Also, as my default technique is drawing their mark-making characteristics appeal. My kit, which is always in the car boot, includes Conté hard pastels and cheap (Faber Castell) soft pastels which are a little too chalky but are cheap and I don't feel too bad about 'wasting' them.
I do from time-to-time also produce larger ‘finished’ pieces of work, for which I use more expensive brands such as Sennelier. Although having said that, these works may well also have an ‘underpainting’ of the cheaper pastels.
The surface will usually be gessoed mountboard—just the ordinary photo-mounting boards (the back side) coated with transparent gesso. I make little or no attempt to achieve an even coating but do think of where in the drawing I might want a stronger texture and in these areas I might use the gesso with less dilution or apply additional coatings. I learned this approach from Sarah Bee who uses mountboard, transparent gesso and a very loose acrylic underpainting. The gessoed mountboard surface is, I understand, the ‘currently fashionable’ surface for many Pastel Soc. artists (I put that in quotes as it was a member that said that to me—not in a dismissive way).
The Conté hard pastels are . . . harder . . . and are better for more detailed work as they are also thinner than the typical soft pastel. This is not a problem I encounter very often as I tend to prefer a more expressive approach which exploits the mark-making characteristics. Norma Stephenson’s work I admire very much and look at Nina Greenwood’s work for a wonderfully free approach to pastel drawing (yes I know pastel work is supposed to be referred to as painting but, as it’s a dry medium and it's the mark-making that appeals to me I prefer drawing).
Most of what I have heard in respect of fixing has been said here. For my sketching kit I use some cheap atomiser spray bottles I got from the Boots cosmetics counter and fill them with fixative. For any ‘finished’ work I am more likely to use a spray diffuser. The big criticism—it will be in any pastel book you might look at—is the tendency to darken the colours; I may be perverse but I like this effect. Much more of a disadvantage for me is that it will also tend to dissolve highlight colours completely if applied too much in one coating.
With respect to mounting/framing the main aspect is as has been said, to keep the work away from the back of the glass. A typical ‘window’ mount with a second mount behind it which has a larger window, or with strips of offcut mountboard stuck to back of the mount just out of sight in the window, allows any dust to fall inside without tainting the visible mount.
Posted
All useful points - as you will have seen, very few people have visited this thread, even though I know quite a few of us are pastellists: I don't seem to be able to get on with the soft ones as well as I'd like on many of the usual surfaces - but I did find a grey-toned velour paper a while ago, which suited me much better. I've yet to try gesso'd mountboard (however I tried to spell that, I got a red line under it). I've watched Arnold Lowrey (on film) paint/draw with pastel on Mi-Teintes paper, and I notice that he works big - I usually don't, in any medium, and I suspect this is where I'm going wrong - you need the sweep of a large surface, adding detail on top, not cutting in and out of small areas with quite large sticks of pastel.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
Yes, you have a point - having watched AL though, he achieves his results with certainly a fair amount of pastel, but he then mixes and blends with his hands to produce considerable coverage with the pigment: it's not one layer on top of another, but a mixture of colours to produce an overall impression on toned paper - and it's that I have trouble with on a small scale. He's not profligate with it, in other words, even if he can now lay his (dusty) hands on quantities of colour free from the manufacturers.
I have another reason for not being keen on working on a large scale with pastel - I have a fairly small working space, and I don't enjoy dusting and running the vacuum cleaner round: as my bed is in the same room as my easel, I think I'd probably be snuggling down in pastel dust .
But! I've just been given a quantity of Inscribe and other pastels from an artist who's moving to smaller premises and thus clearing out the excess: so I shall be looking out for some more of that velour paper I got on with fairly well before, and having another go at it before long.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
I've been away from this forum for a couple of years and just re-registered, since my old ID wouldn't work any more.
I have used pastels for some twenty-five years. My sister-in-law got me into them as a break from oils and I have had a great time with them. I am deeply dismayed at the lack of interest in them in the UK, as a medium.....everything these days seems to be acrylic, acrylic or acrylic. Pastels just don't seem to hold the interest of the modern person. I guess it's to do with the instant-ness of the paint and the instant-ness of the unframed box canvas.
I'm not a professional. Just a person, like (most of) the rest of you, trying to learn the medium and get it to work. I don't paint large pastels; the biggest I've ever done is 22x15 inches. If you want any idea of stunning small pastels, look at the work on Tony Allain's 8x8 inch pieces.
I use pastelmat card, but also have a liking for hand-prepared stuff, such as painting watercolour paper with acrylic and then going over it with pastel primer (i.e a clear one made by Art Spectrum or even just using Winsor and Newton clear gesso). Have also recently tried the range of rougher UART papers. I think there is a huge range of possibilities in terms of experimenting with surfaces, both ready-to-use and handmade ones. In days of old I used Ingres paper...or the original Canson paper....but since the sanded/rough ones came out I've never gone back to them.
I like Rembrandt pastels to start a work with, then Daler-Rowney and Unison for the softer stuff. I do spray with fixative but only the early layers, rarely the final one. Spraying early on can help with the darks. I frame items with a double-mat to keep the work off the glass. I have also posted unframed pastels abroad, by protecting with glassine paper and placing the work between two rigid boards, fixing them securely with crossed tapes to prevent rubbing and slippage. They've always arrived perfectly intact.
This issue with dust, I really feel is being pushed too far, although I can understand the situation with a bed in the same room as the easel. Some people wear a small face-mask and they get along fine with that. But really, dust doesn't fly all over the place unless the artist is going wild on the paper like some demented animal. We have to be careful, there are always people looking for an excuse to ban things, so I think we should keep a low profile! (remember cadmium paint?).
Posted
Well they haven't made any, have they? I wonder.....have a load of people moved to social media? It has certainly happened on Flickr. Some years ago I used to post work there (still do, occasionally) and joined a number of art groups there in the process. However, now, most of the art groups have become all but dead. It seems a great shame.
I don't do social media, other than Pinterest. I just can't be faffed messing about on a small mobile phone to send Instagram messages, post pictures, etc etc and I don't do faceBook either (for a variety of reasons, mainly political). Of course, people may be just busy pastelling....
I've known a few people this past year change their medium to pastel, and one or two are also tackling oil pastels as well (which I also rather like but haven't yet worked out how to use them effectively).
The Americans are way ahead of us with pastel; I subscribe to The Pastel Journal which comes out every two months. There is no equivalent in the UK. Most pastellist's blogs are American or Canadian; can't recall the last British blog with pastel up-front.
Posted
We get pastels on the Gallery, but nowhere near as many as the oils, watercolours and acrylics. But very rarely do pastellists use the Forum - so I assume they're all very happy painting away, problem-free, and unlike me they've found a way of handling the dust.
It would be good to see a few tips from them now and then, though - I've always had trouble with pastel, have used oil pastel more or less successfully and feel rather more confident at using them probably because there is no dust (as to how to use them, you can use them dry, or add a little spirit, genuine turpentine or mineral spirits).
Posted
@Marjorie.....adding names, yes, I have done so at the end of this post; I am used to other forums (non-art) where names aren't used, so must admit my tendency is to forget. I haven't put much in the gallery at the moment because I'm jiggling around re subject matter.....can't make up my mind what to do, half the time.
I'm currently wading through Bill Creevy's "The Pastel Book" (printed some years ago, but I've only recently got myself a copy) and looking at his various techniques....quite unusual, some of them.
Christine Derrick
Posted
I would just like to say that I use pastels at least once a week in my portraiture class. It is only 2 hours long, including the tea break and I have found it to be the quickest way to get the colours down. the two hours simply would not be long enough for me to be mixing colours to make a wet painting. I quite often use Rembrandt soft pastels as the bottom layer. Then having moved it around and rubbed it in with my fingers, I wash my hands and then apply the top layers with pastel pencils (mostly Derwent and a few Faber-Castell).
Regarding the dust, I use a V shaped strip of cheap paper under and over the bottom of the pastel paper so it collects the dust. If the picture looks as if it is getting too thick, then I tap the board and the excess drops to the bottom and ends up in my V shape strip. At the end of the session, I empty the contents of the V, straight in the bin.
There are quite a few others in my class that use pastels, so I thought that they are in common use. But may be they are not sold as frequently, perhaps, because of their fragile nature.
Posted
There are many pastellists; but they seem to keep quiet about it! This thread had what is called a lacuna - no one using it. There aren't that many pastel paintings shown on the Gallery, either. Pastellists never seem to ask questions or seek advice. So I assume they're all beavering away contentedly, sniggering to themselves about all those brush-painters with all their terrible problems with which they need help. We had Jackie Simmonds posting here once, though - how often do we get prominent watercolourists or oil painters coming here to answer questions? When did we last get David Hockney popping down here to give us a tip or two?
So we've got the quality on the pastel section - just not the quantity....
By the way, totally beside any point at all - my spell-checker is set to US English (because I can't be bothered to change it, have forgotten how to turn it off, and, sniff, don't need a spell-checker because I went to a school where they actually taught things. Ahem). But it has enabled me to discover that the Americans do not recognize the word "snigger". Now, did they always not recognize it - which must have made reading English novels, eg by Wodehouse, puzzling - or did they ban it when they realized it had - if you searched hard and didn't concern yourself with the meaning - an unacceptable, racially derogatory word hidden within it? An American of my acquaintance doesn't know, but tells me the preferred equivalent in the USA is "snicker". Fascinating, eh?
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