Hard pastels

home| hard pastels| soft pastels| pastel pencils| oil pastels| water pastels

hard pastels

These have a greater proportion of binder to pigment, so they are more stable in use than soft pastels, but do not have such wide potential for varied surface effects. Traditionally, they are used for preliminary sketching out of a composition, and for adding linear detail and "sharpening' touches to soft pastel work ‑ in effect, hard pastels are the drawing medium that complements soft pastels as a painting medium. You can exploit the linear qualities by using the section edge of the stick, or even sharpening it to a point by shaving it with a fine blade, but there are also several techniques you can use to develop effects of massed colour, such as shading, hatching and crosshatching. The colour range is quite limited by comparison with soft pastels, with nothing like the degrees of variation in hue or tone.