#040 Layering with Soft Pastels

2024 drawing techniques Jun 16, 2024

People and their activities are some of the most interesting subjects for art. In the summer, you can go to any park and see people having fun and being active! We love what we do and you can draw a picture of something you love to do. I like to draw the figure in pastel because the beginning step allows you to draw and redraw many times. The changes are easily made as you just wipe out your lines with the swipe of a cotton ball, and redraw them. This makes pastel the perfect medium for drawing a subject that you may want to make many changes to as you draw.

Gather art materials and references.

All you need is a piece of colored pastel paper or colored construction paper, a cotton ball or chamois, and a set of chalk pastels, also called soft pastels. Any type of chalk, soft or hard pastel will work. Oil pastels will not work with this method.

You will also need a photograph of a figure involved in an activity. You can select a picture of yourself if you like. Here is the picture I will work from. I took this picture at a skate park nearby.

Step One: Line Drawing

Look at the photograph as you draw. Focus on the figure only.

To draw the figure, look at the outside edges. Start by drawing lines that show these edges. Try to fill the page without having major parts, such as the head, go off the page. When some lines aren’t right, wipe them out with the cotton ball or chamois. Allow the thin layer of chalk to remain on the paper and become a part of the work. There are no mistakes in drawing. Each correction means that you are seeing the object more clearly and accurately. Draw, wipe out, and redraw until the figure sits in the space of the page in the way that you want it to.

Don’t critique your work too soon. All we want in this step is a line drawing of a figure in chalk that has been redrawn until you are pleased with it. Congratulations on drawing a figure! Now, let's see how to fill in the background.

Step Two: Simplifying the Background

Fill in the spaces that are the background with colors that are similar to the background. It is important that you do not try to draw everything you see in the background. Chalk pastels are bulky so the background needs to be simplified. Show general colors. Use the side of the pastel to cover broad areas of your picture. Use the tip of the pastel to make lines. You can see in my example that I have chosen to draw the fence and suggested plants with some green. I have left out the complexity of what is seen on the ground including the trash can that sits directly behind the figure. I’ve left out trees and buildings in the upper portion of the picture. Too many items will take our attention away from the figure. Use the cotton ball or chamois to soften areas of the picture. Congratulations on simplifying the background! Now, see how to add color to the figure.

Week Three: Adding Color to the Figure

To add color, you will want to look for light and dark areas of each color section. You will notice that the young man’s skin, his shirt, and his jeans are each a different color. Several colors have been chosen for the skin, but just black is used for the shirt and only blue is used for the jeans. You do not have to use a lot of colors when making a pastel picture. Here I will let the color of the paper do the work for me. I will use the color of the paper to be the light area and use my pastels to create the shaded areas. Gently and carefully fill in the figure, leaving the paper showing in some areas as shown.

Week Four: Details and Finishing Touches

You will need some special tools to add finishing touches to you picture.

A paper stump blends colors.
A kneaded eraser lifts color from the paper.
A can or bottle of hair spray to secure the pastel to the paper.

Once you have all the colors on the paper, take a paper stump and using the point, work over the pastel to blend and to drag pigment into places that you want it. As it is rubbed over dark pastel you will see it intensify the color as it fills in the rough surfaces of the paper. You can soften edges with the stump. See the shirt and jeans in the example.

Next you can use a kneaded eraser to pick up pigment where you want the paper to show through again. I used it in the sky. It was especially important around the young man’s face. The sky was too close in color to the face, so the kneaded eraser was rubbed onto the paper to lift off the light pigment in the sky. This left the blue of the paper, which adds more contrast with the face. You can see that I continued to lift pastel from the paper in the sky area so that it looked like clouds.

To use a kneaded eraser, unwrap it, then pull the ends, stretching it out, and bring it together again. Repeat this for a minute or two. It is now soft and can be shaped to a point to pick up small areas or flattened to pick up broad areas.

There is one final step to a finished pastel drawing. The powder will continue to fall off the paper unless it is secured. One of the safest and easiest ways to secure the pastel to the paper is to lightly coat it with hair spray. To do this hold the picture in one hand, in the air, then with the other hand hold the spray about 12 inches from the picture and give it a light coat, covering the entire picture. The paper will curl, but don’t worry. It will straighten out within moments as it dries.

Congratulations on completing your chalk pastel picture and especially for giving your best efforts to the difficult task of drawing a figure! I hope you liked the way that changes could so easily be made by drawing in pastel and wiping out to redraw. Join me next week for a new drawing adventure!

Your art teacher,

Brenda Ellis