Rustic Textures in Soft Pastel (Sketchbook Sunday)

Hi friends! Today we are breaking out the pastels to create this painting of an old weathered door.

This was so fun to draw with soft pastels. Soft pastels are sticks of pigment, binder and clay and feel like a very pigmented chalk as opposed to oil pastels that can feel like lipstick. I know it can be confusing to know what kind an artist is referring to:) You can watch the timelapse of this demo in the player below. There are a lot of tips and tricks for working in soft pastel. If you prefer the 2 hour and 17 minute narrated real time tutorial it’s up now in Critique Club.

Supplies (affiliate links used) *I used a variety of pastels on this painting. Below I will list my favorites as well as getting started budget picks. I will link to Amazon and Blick, check both places as often prices fluctuate, and if you are buying a large set of pastels the savings can be big.

• If you are looking for pastel drawers like I have this is a good deal, a 7 drawer unit for what I paid for a 3 drawer

• Budget picks:

• Mungyo half stick set or full stick

• Faber Castel Studio half stick set or at Blick

• Canson Mi-Tintes paper or at Blick

• Favorites:

• Nu Pastel (hard square pastels for sketching and details) or at Blick

• Sennelier half stick sets or at Blick. These are velvety soft and offer great coverage

• Schminke pastels or at Blick. These are the softest pastels I own yet are dense than Sennelier so there seems to be more product in the stick and less air. These are a fair deal more expensive than the other sticks I recommend so you might want to start with a small set or a few open stock colors.

• Pan Pastels or at Blick. These are a clean way to use pastels. Ounce for ounce they are a good value. Very low dust and you use less making this an excellent option. I recommend starting with the painting set of 20 (all the pure colors) as you can mix all of your tints and shades from that set because you use a blending applicator to apply the pastel and can double load if you need a new color.

• Other Paper Picks:

• Hahnemulhe Velor Paper or at Blick. *Great for portraits and wildlife

• UART Sanded Paper or at Blick.

• Workable fixatif

• Reference photo

LAST FEW DAYS!!!

50% off my Soft Pastel for Beginners Course through 4/30/21! Learn everything you need to know to get started in soft pastels. Offer good on one-time payments and payment plans. Use coupon APRILSHOWERS if the discount doesn’t appear. Regular price $79, with coupon $39.50

I hope this inspires you to give soft pastels a try! Til next time happy crafting!