Slide 1
Colour rests as particles
Pastel places coloured particles on a surface with relatively little binder. Its appearance depends on the powder remaining near the surface.
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A support with texture gives those particles something to catch on. Smoothness is therefore not always desirable: the paper's tooth helps hold a friable drawing material.
Slide 2
A stick can make many marks
The point of a pastel stick draws a narrow line, while its side can lay down broader colour. Pressure changes the deposit.
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Artists can leave separate marks or blend them with a finger or a rolled-paper tool. Blending changes the relationship between individual strokes and the continuous areas they form.
Slide 3
The support can stay visible
Pastel artists may allow coloured paper to show between strokes. Those gaps become part of the picture's colour relationships.
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Blue paper was used for eighteenth-century pastel portraits. Its contribution means that the visible image is a collaboration between applied colour and the tone of its support.
Slide 4
A portrait can keep soft transitions
Pastel suited artists seeking subtle changes across a face. Blended passages could coexist with sharper accents in eyes, hair or clothing.
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Some portrait supports were mounted on canvas. What resembles a painting in its framing and scale can therefore have a paper drawing surface within a more complex object.
Slide 5
The surface remains vulnerable
Pastel's powdery surface is part of its visual character. Contact can disturb particles that are only lightly held to the support.
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Examining a pastel involves more than identifying its colours. The texture of the paper and the distribution of untouched and blended marks help explain how the artist built the image.
Sources
- Pastel materials and techniques
Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The eighteenth-century pastel portrait
Metropolitan Museum of Art