Working with Pastels

I recently joined the Pastel Society of Southern California (PSSC) because I love pastels and would like to learn how to use them properly. I attended my first meeting in January and was very pleased and excited to find that we have so many pastel artists in the area. This is going to be a great resource for me and I'm looking forward to all the upcoming meetings.

The PSSC is having it's second annual member's show at the end of March and I decided to jump right in. I have a small pastel piece that I started last August. I picked it up again a few weeks ago to try and finish it for the PSSC show.

I originally just wanted to test out a new pad of pastelmat paper I had bought. I find that I like this paper very much. It has a smooth velvety finish that holds lots of pastel very nicely. These are shots from the early progress.













Everything I did at this stage was with pastel pencils, since pencils are what I feel most confident with. It felt more similar to using colored pencils.