DRAWING WITH PASTELS METHODS AND TECHNIQUES : How to draw or paint with hard and soft pastels / oil pastels

How To Draw Using Pastels

On a recent trip to the beach I found a scallop shell half buried in the sand. something about the simplicity of the image made me want to draw it, so I took a quick snapshot for reference later.

How to Draw Grass in Oil Pastels

If you're doing urban landscapes with parks, fountains, suburban homes or townhouses, you'll need to draw grass. A bright green lawn may even cover a substantial area of your painting. How to give that lawn a good texture with some variations in color and shading is tricky. I've come up with a method of layering gestural texture strokes in different hues and values that blends together over large areas to give the impression of short-clipped grass.

Oil Pastels 101: A Comprehensive Guide to Painting with Oil Pastel

If you’re interested in trying artist-grade oil pastels you should either look for an inexpensive small set in one of the major artist-grade brands, or choose your favorite painting colors and put together your own palette from open stock.

Pastel Drawing Tutorial – Pink Orchids

For this second pastel drawing demo, I used the picture of two pink orchids highly sunlit from the top left. The two orchid flowers protrude from the background which is composed of elongated leaves rising from the ground. The lower background is shadowed and makes the orchids stand out even more with color and shape contrast.

Painting Fur - A Step by Step Pastel Art Demo of a Lion Cub

Wherever I display my Art, people want to know how it was done. I am now putting together some workshop pieces to show how my paintings are developed stage by stage and the techniques I use to achieve them.

Pastels Lesson

All about choosing pastels, paper, and techniques for using them.

Pastel Painting Step-by-Step Seascape Demonstration

There were two inspirations for this step-by-step pastel painting: first the visit to the dramatic coastline at Tsitsikamma, on South Africa's Garden Route (see reference photos), and second the acquisition of a set of Unison turquoise pastels.

Pastels Drawing Page Step by Step

How to Draw a Still life in Pastels, step by step.

Watercolor and Pastel Painting Demonstration – Let’s Paint Winter Snowwy Woods!

Watercolor and Pastel Painting Demonstration – Let’s Paint Winter Woods!

About Pastels - With more paste, less pigment can be added. Brilliance is diminished. Pastelists combine types of pastels, using soft ones for their brilliance of hue and semihard ones for drawing and detail. Soft pastels crumble easily, while harder ones with more binder are more durable. You have a choice between durability and brilliance.

An Introduction to Pastel Drawing & Painting - Pastels are a wonderful medium to work with. If you are used to painting in wet mediums like oils and acrylics then you should give pastels a try. They are a very refreshing and enjoyable approach to creating art. This article will introduce you to the various pastel mediums that are available as well as touch on a few pastel panting and drawing techniques that you can incorporate into your next work of art.

Before You Buy Pastel Supplies - Pastels are sticks of ground pigment mixed with chalk and gum or oil, then shaped into drawing sticks. Pastels cannot be mixed on a palette like paints, but are mixed on the paper by overlaying or blending.

Making Your First Pastel Drawing - Pastel drawing involves the use of a type of paint that comes in the form of a substance that resembles chalk. You can have hard, semi-soft, or soft pastels, and all of these are good for different pastel drawing techniques. If you are just starting to learn about pastels I would suggest trying the different types and finding out which one work best for you.

Techniques for Oil Pastels - Oil Pastels may rank as one of the most versatile art supplies you can ever invest in. Almost any medium intended for use with oil painting will work well with them, and you can get effects similar to most types of oil paintings using those mediums on canvas or gessoed hardboard.