Working With Pastels

I know of two types *one is a chalk pastel and the other oil sticks form, it would seem water would not work for either to me ? the oil would be thinned as for oil painting and when ive used the chalk you can rub with your fingers or blending stumps sold at art supply places.Hope its a little enlightening. Rick

I use soft pastels but I've never tried using water with them. I know there are some colored pencils you can get that supposedly mix with water. I guess if you used the soft pastels on watercolor paper you might be able to do some blending with a wet brush. Doesn't hurt to try.

I used to use pastels a lot. You can sort of use a dry brush to some extent but water just makes a mess....any liquid for that matter. The oil pastels don't mix either. Why not switch to water color and then if you want... use the pastels of top of that. A nice mixed medium.

Chalks have a bonding agent that is resistant to water. I don't think you can use them as a form of paint. Val's idea of using a dry-brush technique sounds interesting and doable, though.

If you like the chalkiness of pastels, but want to paint, you could try gouache. It is not transparent like watercolors and would be the media the most similar to pastels. When dry it has a chalky look and feel and could complement pastels if you used it as an underpainting. If you want more detail and control with pastels you could use pastel pencils.

I like the idea of mixed media. In the only art class after high school the prof was a mixed media aficionado. I found some water soluble crayons, but that was a long time ago.

Meanwhile you might have a look at these. Of course you could search deeper. Apparently these only come in ten colors.

http://www.amazon.com/Caran-dAche-Classic-Neocolor-Water-Soluble/dp/B000YIMXMG

I just found this on youtube after doing a quick google search, there may be more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRXWgXuYv68

Great information. Some how I thought I heard you could use a small amount of water with pastels. Glad I got the information. Thanks everyone. :-)

Thanks Richard great information!! :-)

I have some artists pastels that are water soluble, it depends on the binder and the brand. I vaguely remember some of my pastel pencils are as well. You can draw with the pastel stick, then blend with a wet brush or spray with a water bottle, but its not something I have experimented with much.

I've used colour pencils and acrylic paints with pastels frequently with good results, acrylic always under pastels, colour pencils over blended pastel, but I have found this only works on sanded paper like Art Spectrum Colourfix.