| Soft Pastels and Watercolor | |
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judyfilarecki Moderator
Posts : 2685 Join date : 2009-11-16 Location : Northern NY and Southern Arizona
| Subject: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Fri Jan 01, 2010 7:37 pm | |
| When I first started painting, I only used soft pastels in either chalk or pencil form. I loved the way they worked, but I did not like the way I did backgrounds with them. I happened to take a watercolor class at Michaels and learned a few tricks for backgrounds with watercolors. It made me wonder if I could dissolve the pastels and apply them like watercolor. Here is the results. Excuse the reflections, this is under glass, and I did not want to un-frame it. If you look at the top background you can see how it is all blended as watercolor. I simply crumbled up some of the pastel chalk into water, wet the canvas around the buds, leaves and roses with clean water, and dabbed the color in to the wet area. If you have ever used watercolor, you know the color will only spread to the wet areas, so this made it very easy to fill in the background without disturbing the flowers. It was interesting to note that areas that received the color which was less dissolved produced darker results giving it very effective outcome. Hope you found this interesting. I love to experiment. I used to tell my customers at Art Fairs that every painting is an experiment...but they only get to see the ones that worked. Judy | |
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Callie Moderator
Posts : 1233 Join date : 2009-11-21 Location : St. Louis, MO USA
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Fri Jan 01, 2010 10:10 pm | |
| That's gorgeous! I wouldn't have known that wasn't watercolor. | |
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judyfilarecki Moderator
Posts : 2685 Join date : 2009-11-16 Location : Northern NY and Southern Arizona
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Fri Jan 01, 2010 10:24 pm | |
| Thanks Callie, I've used the combination several times. The biggest advantage was that I didn't have any watercolors for a long time, and this way I could just use the colors I had in the pastels to match up exactly if needed. This was one of my very early ones. Disregard the fact that the cat is terrible and the wagon is all bent out of shape. The point here is that the flowers are all the same colors as the ones in the distant garden. This was accomplished by dissolving the pastels I used in the flowers for the garden. It's funny because cat lovers loved this painting and prints and cards sold really well of it. Children especially loved it. You just never know. Judy | |
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Callie Moderator
Posts : 1233 Join date : 2009-11-21 Location : St. Louis, MO USA
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Fri Jan 01, 2010 11:16 pm | |
| That cat looks like he's up to no good That looks like a very useful technique, and you've certainly got it down. The only times I've tried pastels I just couldn't figure out what to do with them. They were too thick and clunky for me to get the hang of. I really enjoy seeing what others are able to do with them. | |
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Janet Moderator
Posts : 2050 Join date : 2009-11-15 Location : North Bay, Ontario Canada
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Sat Jan 02, 2010 12:50 am | |
| Judy, your roses are beautiful and the one with the cat is really cute! I've never heard of using water with pastels. Learn something new every day. | |
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Sofie Moderator
Posts : 713 Join date : 2009-11-27 Location : Courtenay, BC, Canada
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:39 am | |
| Very pretty paintings. I'd never have thought of using pastels as watercolours. It just goes to show that necessity is the mother of invention. | |
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dbclemons
Posts : 154 Join date : 2009-11-16 Location : Texas
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Sat Jan 02, 2010 11:10 am | |
| The primary binder of pastels is gum tragacanth and sometimes methylcellulose, both are water-soluble. You could add a drop of gum arabic to help improve adhesion and behave more like watercolor if you wanted that.
I've made my own gouache paint in the past by ginding down soft pastels. The paint is more gel-like than when using dry powder because of the gum content. | |
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judyfilarecki Moderator
Posts : 2685 Join date : 2009-11-16 Location : Northern NY and Southern Arizona
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Sat Jan 02, 2010 2:00 pm | |
| Callie
I used soft pastel pencils initially for any detail work because I also find the chalks to be too chunky for my detail style. CarbOrthello Stabilo is the brand of pencil I use and Rembrandt Soft pastels are the ones I crumbled using those "nothing else to do with bits and pieces that break off."
David, I didn't find the water mix gel-like but maybe because I really didn't grind them up. I just kind of crumbled them unevenly which gave me the unexpected effect of variation in the intensity of the colors as I dabbed the mix into the wet areas of the canvas. When they dry, though, they can still be rubbed off or blended almost as easily as before dessolving them so you still have to treat them as a pastel. Would your additive make it more resistant to being handled like a pastel and more like a watercolor?
Judy | |
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dbclemons
Posts : 154 Join date : 2009-11-16 Location : Texas
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:36 pm | |
| Adding gum arabic would help some but I'd suggest not using either too much of it or too much powder, or just use watercolor. | |
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kbaxterpackwood
Posts : 94 Join date : 2010-01-22 Location : Iowa
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:04 am | |
| depending on the quality of your pastels the primary binder is gum tragacanth. I was using cheap soft pastels and went into anaphalaxis only to find out later on that the binder used in cheap pastels is latex. So be sure of what you are working with! I use unison pastels, the binder is gum trag, these lend themselves wonderfully, I have found out, to water color techniques and if your into doing so even gouache techniques. Kimberly | |
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judyfilarecki Moderator
Posts : 2685 Join date : 2009-11-16 Location : Northern NY and Southern Arizona
| Subject: Re: Soft Pastels and Watercolor Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:08 pm | |
| Thanks Kimberly,
Both pastels were done over 10 years ago. Since the main portion was soft pastel, it didn't matter that the watercolor effect I used with these same soft pastels, could be blended just like in their original state once they dried.
They have held up beautifully framed under glass, although before framing them, I did spray them with a fixative.
Judy | |
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