Pastels Aren’t Chalk!



<---chalk


We all know what chalk is; it's what your teachers used to send shivers up and down your spine. I still get goose bumps just thinking about that sound. (Like right now. I'm writing about it so obviously I'm thinking about it and I've got terrible goose bumps). Pastels aren't anything like that. It also doesn’t mean a pretty spring color. I realize that a lot of misconception about pastels comes from our use of the word to explain certain colors, which is a totally unrelated thing, but I was surprised to read a story that a juror at an art show referred to a pastel painting as a "chalk drawing". When I read that I realized how misinformed even art professionals can be.

<--- not chalk


So if we know what it isn't...what is pastel?


In art terms it can mean several things. (Even when we narrow down the definition solely to art it doesn't mean a specific thing without context. Nothing is simple, is it?). A pastel can be in reference to a finished painting (or drawing, but that a whole other topic) or it can be in reference to the medium itself. In that case it gets broken down further still, but one thing they all have in common is pigment. What holds that pigment together in a usable form is what makes them different from each other. An oil pastel is held together in a binder of linseed oil and beeswax. Much like lipstick, it has a creamy texture and can even be thinned with oil painting mediums. The downside to these is that most pastel societies and competitions (with the exception of ones specifically for oil pastels or those open to all media) will not accept them into juried shows. For that, we turn to soft pastels. There are also semi-hard (also called demi-dur) pastels such as NuPastels which have a waxy outer layer. For the sake of juried shows and exhibits, most will accept semi-hard pastels, but always check with the specific exhibit or competition to be sure.

Soft pastels have gotten a bad rap for being messy, weak, impermanent, imprecise. None of these things are true, though it certainly is true for the ones kids use in school. School pastels are made with a calcium carbonate binder which makes them..............chalk! No wonder everyone is so confused. A true artist grade pastel consists of pure artists' grade pigment, a binder such as gum tragacanth, and sodium orthophenyl phenate as a preservative. Some pastels, such as Roche and Diane Townsend Terrages, also contain pumice. The pumice acts as a means to roughen the surface being painted on, allowing the pigment to adhere more firmly.  It also allows the artist to build up more layers.  What limits the number of layers an artist can do depends on when the tooth gets fully filled in. Once the surface is smooth not much will stick, so by having the pumice included it's possible to work longer. Different supports also affect the number of layers, but that’s a topic for the next time.