Sick of oil paints and their cleanup time? Would you like to try a medium that is easy to carry with you? Then try pastels!
Don't be fooled: there is a difference between soft pastels and oil pastels. Oil pastels are not pastels at all; they are pigment held together with a wax binder. In short, they are crayons.
Dry pastels are made of pure pigment and an inert binder to hold the stick together. They paint like chalk, and depending on the brand, some are hard and some are soft.
When choosing a pastel brand, you must think about your style. Do you prefer to paint abstracts? Does photo-realism appeal to you? Do you want to paint soft hues, or have crisp, hard lines? Soft pastels are great for blending, or painting wide areas of colors, while hard pastels excel at detail and linework.
Unison Soft Pastels are probably the best quality brand, but they are also the most expensive.
Rembrandt Soft Pastels are a good choice for the beginner: they are medium-soft and very versatile.
Winsor and Newton pastels are more limited in their color choice, but that makes blending them easier, so one wrong color won't turn your hue into mud.
Cont hard pastels are excellent for drawing your initial sketch. They are slightly harder than a charcoal stick, and are excellent for detail work.
You must also consider what surface you will paint on. Sanded Masonite is a popular choice, because it is rigid and archival. But for quick exercises or practice, the Mi-Teintes colored pastel papers are a good choice. A pastel artist can paint on just about anything, as long as it has enough "tooth" (bumpy texture) to hold the pigment. Velour paper is great for the advanced painter. It has a velvet texture, and artists like Lesley Harrison do fantastic things with it. But it is delicate, and one wrong bump can knock hours of work off onto the floor.
There are as many pastel painting techniques as there are artists. Some artists apply an acrylic or watercolor undercoating on their paper before applying pastel.
Some artists apply a layer of pastel, rub it into the paper's tooth with their fingers, apply another layer, blend that one in, and so on and so forth, applying layer after layer until they have achieved their desired effect. Others apply layers of pastel and never blend it with their fingers.
Pastel dust can make you ill, so if you plan to work with it extensively, get a dust mask. Some colors, like blue, are toxic in large quantities.
Pastel is a rewarding medium, whether you plan to paint in a class, a studio, or outdoors. And cleanup is simple; just wash your hands and return the sticks to their box. Why not give them a try?