Pastel painting is a gentle and sophisticated direction in the visual arts. Performing drawings in such a technique is quite simple, it is important to choose high-quality material. The colors are clean, fresh, and the shading makes the paintings even more delicate and touching.
Features of this direction
The effects in pastel painting are characterized by soft transitions, color purity, a pleasant velvety surface, but artists should have a high level of skill, because with careless execution this technique will lose its charm and sophistication. A pastel is a cross between drawing and painting, so you can draw lines, make strokes and shading with it.
This trend in painting requires precise application of strokes and lines. The master must have a subtle artistic flair to choose the perfect combination of colors, because changing them will be very difficult. The famous effects in pastel painting are the flickering radiance of the tone, the amazing possibility of mixing and blending colors.
When creating a masterpiece, there should be perfect lighting, because the play of colors in the picture depends on the intensity and direction of the light. This is what is interesting in pastel painting. Such paintings evoke admiration and a desire to consider them in varying degrees of illumination.
Varieties of material
For pastel painting, you need to choose a certain material so that you get a beautiful picture. There are three types of pastels:
Both oil and dry pastels are made by pressing. Only in the butter add flaxseed oil and pigment, and wax based on high-quality wax with the addition of pigments.
Oil pastels are used for educational purposes, the dry version is suitable for educational and artistic purposes. When drawing with dry pastel, the shading method is used, which allows you to create smooth transitions and delicate shades.
This version of the pastel exists in two types: hard and soft. Soft consists of pure pigments and a small amount of a binder component. She is comfortable making wide strokes of saturated color. Hard crayons are less likely to break, because they contain a large amount of binder. Itβs convenient to create a picture with them, because you can make both tone and drawing fine details.
For pastel painting you need to choose the right paper. For this, colored pastel paper is usually used. The tone of the paper must be selected taking into account the features of the picture. Why not use white paper? Because it is more difficult to assess the saturation of the primary colors with it.
There are three types of paper for pastel painting:
- emery - it is used to create artwork, you can purchase it in large format;
- pastel board - consists of small particles of cork;
- velvet paper.
To protect the pastel pattern from shedding, it is fixed with ordinary hair spray or a special fixative. Colors become not so soft and deeper.
Feathering
In pastel colors, shading is used to create soft transitions between colors and smooth lines. Its main purpose is to evenly distribute color. For blending, the artist uses a rag, fingertips or blending.
With this technique, the wizard can create a smooth border by dimming the color intensity. This is a basic technique in pastel painting, it is simple to perform. The artist creates a drawing and proceeds to rub the strokes, and then imposes more saturated color pigments on top of the shading.
Blending with fingers and staining over feathering
In pastel painting often use the technique of blending with your fingers. If you work with a large surface, then distribute the pigment with your fingers together. If the picture is small, then a fingertip is enough. The most important thing is to wash off the color after each shading so that there is no dirt.
Layers of pastels of different colors can be superimposed on each other, but keep in mind that the more saturated the lower background, the shade of the upper layer will differ from the original. To prevent this, make the shading of the lower layer, and then proceed with the application of another pigment.
Sweep
This technique in pastel painting should be used as rarely as possible, because this can lead to the fact that the colors will not be so intense. To erase, use an eraser, but if it is not used correctly, you can damage the surface, as a result, the pastel will lie unevenly.
Prepare the site for correction. Wipe it with cotton or a cloth, removing part of the pigment. Then you can use the eraser. It does not need to be pressed hard so as not to damage the surface of the picture. If you follow these recommendations, you will be able to carefully correct the picture.
Lines and spots
In the technique of pastel painting, special attention should be paid to lines and spots. They can be intermittent, simple, which emphasize the contour, or more complex, creating shapes and volume. The artist must carefully approach the choice of the shape of lines and spots in order to more accurately convey his idea.
To create them, you need to use a pastel bar and draw them at a certain angle or flat. If the artist chooses the second option, then he will get strokes equal to the width of the bar.
The master uses hard pastel to draw lines. The chalk is put on the edge and draw a line - it turns out perfectly straight. You can use soft pastel, only the stroke width will turn out more.
The most advanced masters of pastel painting use stains of pure color and make minimal shading. This is due to the fact that shading muffles the color saturation, and some artists do not like it. That is why many people use unstained spots that perfectly convey the purity and brightness of the color.
There is a special technique in pastel painting, in which masters do not use shading at all, but create a picture of clean spots. On closer inspection, they seem like an abstraction, but if you move away, the viewer will see a solid canvas.
A brief excursion into history
The name "pastel" comes from the word "a pastel", which meant drawing with black Italian pencil and sanguine. In the XVIII century, this technique became popular, it was widely used in France and England. Famous pastel artists were Francois Boucher, Chardin, Delacroix and others.
Gradually, its popularity somewhat decreased, but the pastel again became interesting to artists in the second half of the 19th century. The pastel was actively used in the work of the Impressionists, because it allowed us to get a clean and beautiful color. The impressionists created surprisingly delicate, translucent paintings.
In Russian art
In Russia, pastel began to be used at the beginning of the 18th century thanks to foreign artists. In the beginning, only foreign masters painted, who performed work on order. Famous pastel artists in Russia were Karl-Wilhelm Bardoux, who painted portraits in this technique; it was also used by Alexander Orlovsky and Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov and other masters. This trend in the visual arts allowed us to create amazing landscapes with pure colors and soft lines.