Pastels are vibrant and bold offering fast results and easy blending abilities. You don't need any solvents or mediums, there is no drying time and pastels can be erased or simply covered over if you make a mistake which makes them an ideal medium for almost any Artist starting out. Pastels are ideal for creating vibrant works of art that can be created within minutes using just 2 or 3 colors which can be blended perfectly offering smooth transitions and no hard edges, it is this simplistic nature of Pastels that allows you to have fun whilst learning!. Alongside the Pastel blocks are the Pastel pencils, creating minimal mess and allowing you to achieve high detail in your Pastel portraits if you enjoy the challenge.
TIPS:
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For best effect, work dark to light and background to foreground
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Full-sized sticks are ideal for covering larger areas of paper, smaller half-size sticks can be used for creating finer detail - break a full-sized stick in half keeping one side sharp for fine lines and using the other half for base tones.
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Do not blow dust from your paper, ideally work from an upright Easel so dust can fall naturally - minimise pastel drop spoiling your Art by working from top to bottom
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Using more tones of the same color family will enable you to achieve more depth
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Applying heavy layers on fine grit paper will saturate the paper far quicker than on heavy grit paper.
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Heavy grit paper can be sharp, if you use your fingers to blend do so with caution or use a blender and avoid the need for plasters!
