Pastel questions

[coriat]

hey i have a question for you all

I thought i'd try my hand at pastel drawing/painting-something...
well, i found some old pastels (at least 10 years old : i played with them as a kid :) ) and wanted to try them out...so i tried to copy daarken's mastercopy pastel-drawing at the hand of the (awesome) steps he posted here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4638) ...but i cant apply one pastel over the other...like when i make an area 1 color, say the red from the 1st drawing and then i try to apply the yellow it just gets all muddy... am i doing something wrong here?

I tried it a couple of times using different colors, fixing it before i do the second layer...
nothing works :(

Sooo, i have a couple of questions for you guys n galls :)


1) What's the difference between hard and soft pastels... i read hard pastels are better for detailed work..but i'm not so good... is it possible for someone like me to get sufficient detail with just soft pastels?

2) Are the problems i having the result of having crappy pastels or a crappy technique?

3) What is a good book about pastel drawing? i robbed the library of all pastel-painting and pastel-drawing books - - haven't had any time to read them though - - but i'd like to have one for myself so that i dont have to re-lend them every 3 weeks at the library.

4) Anything else you guys can give about pastels... own experiences, does the tooth, texture and color of the paper matter much, do i suck ass? don't i deserve to use pastels?
everything! :)

[coriat]

erm..i just found out what brand pastels i have...
Xonex oil pastels...
So i gues my "i make everything muddy"-problem is because it are oil pastels? I've done a bit of extra experimenting with a smudge stick (paper thing, i dont know the name) and the colors just blend...it's really cool!
I'm gonna play with it some more..but it also raises another question for me...:
5) if i would want to make a large area of 1 color with litle dots of another color, how can i make those dots so that they are a "pure" color..eg. the dont smudge with the other colors??


Well, thanks in advance!:chug:

[MindCandyMan]

Yeah oil pastels are like painting with oils that's why they get all muddy. Regular pastels you actually blend on the canvas. I used nupastels (hard (consistency I mean) ones to do this master copy)

http://www.mindcandyfilms.com/jons_uploads/Degas%20Pastel%20Copy%202.jpg

but soft pastels blend a whole lot better. It really is like painting except a lot more clumsy since you mix on the canvas instead. Not sure what good books are out there on them...

[egerie]

I *hated* oil pastels... Altho working them with a hint of "essence minérale" (does anyone know what it's called in english ?) makes things considerably more easy, especially for plending. Basicaly what it does is "melt" your pastel on canvas and makes it easyer to smear/blend. You can also work glazes with a brush.
(careful that stuff doesn't smells anything but attacks the brain. weeeeeeeeeeh ! :trippy: :dead3: )

[dbclemons]

Originally posted by coriat
erm..i just found out what brand pastels i have...
Xonex oil pastels...
So i gues my "i make everything muddy"-problem is because it are oil pastels? I've done a bit of extra experimenting with a smudge stick (paper thing, i dont know the name) and the colors just blend...it's really cool!
I'm gonna play with it some more..but it also raises another question for me...:
5) if i would want to make a large area of 1 color with litle dots of another color, how can i make those dots so that they are a "pure" color..eg. the dont smudge with the other colors??


Well, thanks in advance!:chug:

Oil Pastels have no medium like oil paint so they never dry. If you tried drawing on top of another color, they'd just mix together (as you've already found out.) You can draw on top of dried oil or acrylic paint, though. If you'd rather keep it all oil pastel, you could plan ahead and draw around where your spots would be. Also, if you draw lightly on the under color there won't be as much mixing on the second layer. I like oil pastels, but fine deatils are hard to do.

Soft chalk pastels are different altogether. They're basically just compressed powder. You can work on top of it in layers if you use a fixative. My experience with that is that it darkens the color, however. My technique is to work in shapes and not one color on top of another.

-David

[coriat]

hey, thanks everyone!
Well, here are some more thoughts (by me, so nothing deep :p ).

-I need to study color theory
WHERE?
since my pastels blend so well, i'm gonna make a primary-secondary-color wheel tomorrow (a bit too late now :) i'm really tired after work) but if anyone would have a bit more info i'd love it!

-I, personally, think oil pastels are more difficult then regular pastels...you can't correct yourself when you f*** up because they smudge
Good practice for me, but maybe a bit too frustrating?
I'd like to hear some more thoughts on this.

-If i don't start a "coriat's daily pastel still life/landscape/mastercopy/portrait thread" kick me in the nuts for slacking off :)

[dbclemons]

The best books on color theory are Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color" and "The Elements of Color." They've been around for years so you could probably track down a used copy somewhere.

No, oil pastels aren't very forgiving. You can scrape them off some with a knife, or use a thinner, but that's not great to do on paper.

-David