by The Extraordinary Tourist

Created on: July 03, 2007

Real tips for using chalk pastels by a real chalk pastel artist. After more than ten years of working with chalk pastels these are a few of my tips.

Stay away from cheap chalk pastels. They are nearly always too chalky resulting in more chalk dust going on the floor than what you actually leave on the artwork.

Whilst chalk pastels are great on paper (generally coarse toothed papers) they are even better on canvas. Chalk pastels work extremely well on pre-primed canvases that you can buy from any art supply store. The tooth of the canvas really holds the color in well.

Work on a vertical surface, such as an easel, so that your chalk dust falls to the floor. This will save you having to blow any loose dust off the artwork. Speaking of chalk dust. It is said that chalk dust can cause respiratory problems. If you are at all concerned about this wear a filter mask over your mouth and nose whilst working.

Chalk pastels are ideal for mixed media artworks. In fact, in the majority of my own chalk pastel artworks I begin with an acrylic base painting of primary colors (yellow for light areas, red for mid tones and blue for shadows) before completing the rest of the piece in pastels. The paint showing through makes the pastel more vibrant and gives the whole artwork a more 'painted' rather than 'drawn' look. Quality pastels will have no trouble hiding the paint if you don't want it to show through in particular areas.

Although we all love the look of a nice new pastel stick don't be afraid to break them, tear off the paper covering so you can use the side, or sharpen them to a point with a bit of sand paper.

Smudging is great for covering large areas with color and is more efficient and less wasteful of your pastels. I use my fingers a lot for this. Smudging is also used to mix and blend colors on your artworks surface. I tend to use a different finger for different color mixing until I run out of fingers and need to wash my hands to continue! (keep a bucket of water near by for washing your hands in - unless you want to be forever cleaning chalk dust off your sink basins).

Pastels are great when mixed with water. You can either wet your surface and draw on the wet area with the pastel or you can cover and area with pastel and then wet it with a soft brush. Either way the water can significantly brighten the pastel color on your artwork.

If you find your surface is getting too clogged with chalk yet you still need to add more color then spraying the work with 'workable fixative' (available from art stores) will fix the chalk on the surface and allow you to apply more on top.

Finished artworks should always be sprayed with fixative at minimum. Personally I also spray my finished work (on canvas) with Spray Varnish (also available from art stores) as this gives the work more permanent protection.

Pastel artworks should always be framed behind glass when being exhibited. Even with a coating of varnish the work is still more fragile than an acrylic or oil painting and won't stand up to being brushed along the artworks face too many times (such as one might when dusting).

Hopefully you've found these tips useful. In this kind of article it can be really difficult to describe techniques that are best shown with pastel in hand. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Chalk Pastels are very versatile and are great for both large bold works as well as smaller, finely detailed compositions. They mix well with other mediums, such as acrylics, water colors, charcoal and more.

If you're new to pastels then start off with larger works with less detail. As you get more confident your ability to produce finer lines will improve enabling you to add more and more detail into your creations.

Learn more about this author, The Extraordinary Tourist.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.