Pastel (stick)

The pastels are sticks of color used in the technique of the Pastel. They are composed of pigments, a load and a binder.

Composition of the sticks of pastel

The sticks of pastel are made up:

of pigments of various origins according to the color. One finds pigments animal (cochineal, Sépia), plants (Indigo, garance), minerals (Ocre, Ground of His), organics (coal) or synthetic;

of a load, which is in general of the chalk or the plaster, which is used to give its texture of the pastel;

of a binder which ensures coherence and conditions the hardness of the stick. It is in general about gum arabic, but one finds other binders, in particular in the Pastel with oil. Generally, the hardness of the pastel is proportional to the quantity of binder.

Types of sticks

One has in the trade of the sticks of pastels various forms and lengths, but they are in general divided into sticks normal length and sticks of half-length. The purchase of sticks in half-length makes it possible to the pastellist to lay out of more than colors and to have the best taken in hand of the tool.

Contrary to the Painting of the type Oil-base paint, Acrylic Gouache or , which makes it possible to create an infinity of colors starting from the mixture of few colors, the pastel makes it possible to mix the colors only in a limited way. Indeed, the mixture of the colors very quickly saturates the Pore S with the paper on which one paints. The pastellist must thus provide himself with the broadest possible color range.

Pastel tender (dry)

The tender pastel is the type of the most fragile pastel because most friable. It is composed of pigments, chalk and Gum arabic like binder. It is the pastels for which one finds a range chromatic the most extended in the trade.

Many marks of pastels are available, of very different qualities (more or less friable).

" Schminke " German is very soft and covering, but saturates quickly paper, the " Sennelier " French has bright colors, but is often very friable and fragile, the " Windsor " English can constitute a good compromise between these two, but is distributed little in France, finally the " Rembrandt " Dutch is sometimes too hard, but much less expensive than the precedents.

Hard pastels

The hard pastels are more solid and are generally presented in the form of hard sticks, connected to chalks. One also finds in the trade of the hard pastels of the mark told sold under the denomination “Conté squares”.

Pencils pastels

The pencils pastels are pastels conditioned in the form of pencils out of wooden with a mine of hard pastel. They allow a more precise work, are more easily affûtables and resist the shock better. They on the other hand are not adapted to broad surfaces.

Pastels aquarellables

The pastels aquarellables are generally presented in the form of pencils whose mine in pastel can dissolve in water and be spread out by means of a wet Pinceau.

Fatty pastels (with oil)

The pastels with oil were invented in 1924 by the professors Rinzo Satake and Shuku Sasaki in order to give to their students a means of being expressed coloured, easy and cheap.

In this type of pastels, the gum arabic is replaced by oil, which explains the waxy texture of the pastels to oil. The technique of the pastels to oil is very different from that of the tender pastels.

In particular, the pastel with oil requires the use of oil of Terpentine for dilution or certain techniques of estompement.

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