Pastels are a strong and also colourful way of painting. The medium itself is dry and because of its powdery surface the light reflects well. So, with pastels, they give out very intense colouring, more so than any other medium.

One advantage with these is, that you do not have to wait for the paint to dry, because this is a dry medium. As for artists, this can be quite trying, having to be patient. This being so, you can go directly with your pastels and colour your surface straightaway.

They will last longer too than oil paints and will not crack, or in fact yellow with age, as there is no oil or varnish included in the mixture.

Degas used this form of medium quite significantly for his artworks, which demonstrated how vibrant the colours can appear with the movement of colour and light showing throughout his work. Personally I loved his pictures of racehorses and ballet dancers.

Incredible it may be, but pastels painted in olden times, are still as bright, colourful and fresh as they probably were when they were first created. Pastels can actually be framed under glass, providing you do have a cardboard mat between them and the glass.

It may, or may not, be widely known, that the same pigments are used in watercolours, pastels and oils. They are just mixed in other ways in manufacture. Take watercolours, they are a mix of pigment and gum. Oil is mixed with pigment for oils. Lastly, pastels are mixed with water and chalk together, with the pigment resulting in a fine paste.

When pastels are manufactured, after the colour has been checked and sometimes more pigments added, the paste has to be pounded to remove the air in it. Then it can be shaped into long, round, strips which then can be cut into short lengths for pastels.

They then need to go through the drying process, before they can be labelled and packed into boxes, with care, before they get damaged.

Rowney, who manufacture paints, are one of several companies who did not add a binding agent to pastels. Of course, things may have changed. However, if a binding agent is used, it will affect the finished strengthness of the mark, the pastel will produce. In the case of the Rowneys, they were durable and quite soft.

As for the colouring itself, the strength of the pastels colouring is decided by how much chalk is mixed with the pastel. A small amount of chalk will yield a dark tint, whilst much chalk will produce a pale tint. So ,you will find there will be ranges of colour with every tint.

Pastels too, are graded from light tints to dark shades. To appreciate pastels at their best, just look at the works of Degas and how inspirational his paintings were and still are to the present day.

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