Working with pastels is not exactly painting, although it is called painting, as a rule. It really is a form of sketch­ing, with color; for one uses solid sticks of color without water or oil. It has proved to be a most interesting me­dium and of late years has become a most vital, alive method of producing works of art, since the great French impressionist artist, Degas, did those wonderful pastels in his late years, when failing health and eyesight made him take to this quick, simple method of work. Pastel painting is the cheapest method of any to achieve full-color results, for all you need is a few sticks of solid color and a piece of paper. There are no brushes; no medium of oil or turpentine, no elaborate preparation of paper by stretching—just a few drawing pins will suf­fice to keep the paper firmly in position on the board. Of course pastel painting has been practiced for several hundreds of years and not always in the same free and easy style, or method, that is mostly favored today. La Touche, the great pastellist of the eighteenth century, in France, where his portraits in pastel were very popu­lar, always used an elaborate and rather smooth tech­nique by smoothing or rubbing with the finger or a "stump." Except in the hands of a genius, this method tends to be messy and blurry and lacks any crisp defini­tion of forms. This is the sort of thing that, done badly, has given pastels a bad name among artists. For to use this inexpensive and simple medium well is not as easy as you might think.

But there is no doubt that the use of pastels is ideal for making quick notes of all sorts of effects that need color. You carry your colors with you in a small pocket-size box and you can buy a small sketch book made up with colored papers of a suitable surface for taking the pastel crayons. It is for this reason that almost every art­ist uses pastels to make quick vital records of clouds, sunsets, or any subject where the color element is of the greatest importance.

MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT

As I have said, there are very few things one needs. There are the pastels themselves: solid sticks of color with a covering of waxed paper almost to the top. It is wise to keep this covering paper intact as long as possible, for once it tears and is gone the pastel breaks up quickly. That is the chief difficulty about pastels; they break so very easily and get all smudged and smeared with powdered color, that you cannot tell, at a glance, just which color you are picking up. While you may treat yourself to the more expensive French pastels for special purposes, or to a few particular colors on occasion, the standard pastels are eminently suitable for general use. They should be purchased in a small wooden or tin box. A large box is not desirable. Usually there is a good range of the necessary colors in these smaller boxes, but after you have once bought a box, you can add your spe­cial favorite colors, as time goes on. You will probably find the colors wrapped in cotton wool in little niches-do keep them in their wool and their separate niches, as far as you possibly can, for pastels are so fragile that they must have devoted care if you are not to get into an awful muddle when you are trying to find a particular color. You should aim to keep the color stick intact as long as possible and to let the color of the stick be rec­ognizable at a quick glance.

PAPER

The choice of the paper or board on which you are to work is probably the most important part of the tech­nique of pastel painting. First of all you need a toned paper—in other words it must be of a color, not white, but the color of the paper must be subtle and not too obvious in tint. Therefore a delicate blue-gray—or pink-gray or a slight fawn—would perhaps meet most occa­sions, but it is as well to have a good range of colored papers or boards, in order to choose the right tone for your particular sketch. The "tooth" or grain of the paper must be just right. It is good fun searching round art shops or friendly printers' to get the necessary papers to suit your subject and your style of work. Printers often have a few spare sheets of "cover" papers which are admirable for the purpose. Cut your paper up into the size you wish to make your sketches and keep the sheets flat, in a portfolio, with a heavy weight on top. A useful size is 18 inches by 14 inches.

PORTFOLIO

Of course you will need a portfolio to carry your paper and a drawing board of about 20 inches by 16 inches to pin the paper to—a thin board will do quite well as you will not put much strain or stress on it, through usage, as you do when using water colors. In fact, a stout piece of cardboard or a piece of three-ply wood will serve the purpose admirably. If you do not wish to bother about a drawing board you can fix your paper to the outside of the portfolio with paper clips, as explained before.

It is important to remember that every sketch you do in pastel is fragile and therefore you need tissue paper to cover your sketches—cut to the size of your drawing paper. You should place each finished sketch carefully in the portfolio, covered with a sheet of tissue paper, and put four drawing pins, one in each corner, to keep the whole set of sketches in place, to prevent rubbing and smearing.

EASEL

Your easel will be the same as before so there is no need to worry about that—you may find with pastels that you cannot stand up so often, and you may therefore find that you need a stool—one of those abhorrent things that some artists sit on—and that should only be used very sparingly!

MOUNTING AND FRAMING

As pastel pictures are so fragile, you must take very great care in handling them. They must be covered with tissue paper from the start and put carefully into the portfolio with clips so that there is no chance of the sur­face being rubbed or smeared. When you decide on those which deserve to be kept, you must see to it that they are mounted on cardboard and as soon as possible put under glass, either in passe-partout mounts or in small wooden frames. The whole idea is to keep them from the air and from being rubbed. It is a good thing to have a small slip in the frame, which keeps the actual pastel picture from touching the glass itself.

I, personally, never use—and cannot recommend-any form of "fixitive."

METHODS OF WORK

My experience has been to use the pastel medium in a bold and direct way—using crosshatching of one color against another to produce the required result. For in­stance, if you wish for a green, you Crosshatch blue and yellow pastels, varying the color of the blue or yellow according to the sort of green you want. The same with red and blue if you wish for a purple, and with red and yellow if you require an orange. Working as you do on a tinted paper your sky is put in with strokes of white and light yellow and blue, with a slight tinge of red where you wish a warmer tone. This direct use of the pastel chalks without smudging or merging gives a very vivid effect. The whole idea is to keep the picture fresh and spontaneous. You cannot alter pastels easily, once you have put on a stroke of color, so try to get the effect straightaway. If you do happen to get the wrong color do not try to erase it, but put other colors on top, with a heavier stroke of the wrist—making the colors merge by pressure of one on the top of the other. As you can imagine, it is very easy to overdo the pressure you exert and you find that the pastel breaks up into little pieces —so the skill rests in exerting just the right degree of pressure. Using pastels is more in the nature of draw­ing than of painting, because each stroke is a broad line and not a patch, as when using brushes and a tactile sub­stance. The way to keep a certain amount of point on the pastel to give precision to the stroke is to use the sides rather than the top and so keep a degree of "edge." You cannot sharpen the pastel as a general rule, so you must rely on keeping an edge by the way you use the stick of color. You are really making a colored summary of your subject and not any exact rendering of all its complications. Have a look at the pastel by R. G. Hol-loway, Illustration 8.

SUBJECTS

It follows from these remarks about methods and treat­ment that the choice of subjects for pastel painting is quite different from that for oil or water-color pic­tures. You seek, for big, simple color schemes, rather than any detail, and there must be plenty of linear rhythm in the subject. It is a cross between painting and drawing—you have color to mass and arrange, and as you are working with solid pieces of color, without any fluid, so you choose subjects that give scope for bold drawing and bold coloring. The use of a toned paper also affects the choice of subject, for you are not giving sparkle, or limpidity, but brilliant gay colors related to the foundation tone of the paper you are using.

GENERAL SUMMARY

It may be as well to recapitulate what has already been written, in a simple form, to clarify matters. I have therefore imagined a questioner who asks me twenty questions, bearing on the points I have tried to explain in the foregoing pages.

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