Pigment plus chalk filler plus a little gum makes a pastel stick. Below, a magnified view of toothed paper with loose pigment powder caught on its tooth.

Concept · Paint and Its Surface

Pastel

Pastel is pigment mixed with a white filler such as chalk, held in a stick by a trace of weak gum.

With so little binder, the color rests on the paper's tooth as loose powder. The powder scatters light, giving pastel its soft, velvety look, and it smudges at a touch.

  • Fixative sprays hold the powder, but they darken the colors and flatten the surface, so many pastellists did without.
  • Pastel needs no drying time, and a portrait took fewer sittings. It became a fashion after Rosalba Carriera visited Paris in 1720–21.

See

Image: Made for this site · Original work

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