Chalk Pastels
I use a wide variety of chalk pastels for my work. Chalk pastels come in varying degrees of hardness. The hardness is a measure of how much pigment to binder (glue) the pastel contains. Harder pastels allow for sharper details, but have less colour vibrancy, while softer pastels have a much stronger colour, but are more difficult to use for fine details. Therefore, I use a mixture of pastels with varying degrees of hardness for different parts of the drawing.
Chalk Pastels come in a variety of forms including sticks, pencils and Pan Pastels. I use sticks and pencils the most, and occasionally use Pan Pastels for diffuse backgrounds.
High resistance to fading
The pastels I use have excellent lightfast ratings. Lightfastness is a measure of how resistant a pigment or dye is to fading under UV light. Cheap amateur art supplies are very prone to fading, hence why I never use them. I only ever use high quality professional pastels which have excellent lightfast ratings. This ensures that your portrait is highly resistant to ageing.
Pastel Brands
I use a wide variety of professional pastel brands. They all have their different strengths, and over the years I’ve come to know which ones work best for different areas of your portrait. Some of the most common brands I use are listed below.
Pastel Pencils
- Stabilo Carbothello
- Faber Castell Pitt Pastels
- Derwent
- Caran D’Ache
- Conté à Paris
Pastel Sticks
- Unison
- Rembrandt
- Faber Castell Polychromos
- Conté à Paris
- Daler Rowner Artists’ Soft Pastels
Pastel paper
I use professional sanded pastel paper for all my pet portraits. This type of surface is fantastic for holding lots of pastel pigment, allowing me to build up many layers of colour within your portrait. This results in a highly realistic drawing that has depth, dimension and vivid colours.
The paper I use is acid free. Cheaper papers are made with wood pulp that contains natural acids, and over time this can cause a yellowing effect. By using a professional acid-free paper, you can be sure that your drawing will not yellow over time.
The brand of pastel paper that I use the most is called Pastelmat. I’ve used it for many years and it produces fantastic results. I also occasionally use UArt, for my larger portraits. This is also a brilliant surface and produces incredibly vibrant and detailed, yet soft, textures.
Portrait of Nova the golden Retriever, drawn on UArt pastel paper.
