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Pastels are so forgiving. (Gaye Adams)
As I apply my colours, I vary the amount of pressure on the sticks. This helps to create a more interesting variation... by mingling more transparent areas among the opaque passages. (Kathryn Amisson)
As I rarely find the actual colours that I need in the pastel sticks, I build up the hues by using overlapping strokes of different colours... my colours are in fact made up of several others, like a tapestry. (Gwenneth Barth)
Bright colours or dark ones, sparkling clarity or misty atmosphere, landscape, still life, portrait - I haven't met a subject, style or mood yet that can't be portrayed beautifully in pastel. (Dave Beckett)
I use a lot of blending and layers of pastel to achieve the smooth, polished look and quality of extreme realism. (Allan Berman)
With pastels you don't need gimmicks and are only limited by your imagination. If something doesn't work for you... simply rub/scrub the offending area right back to the paper colour and build it up again. (Gail Boyle)
There's really no need to blend pastel strokes to create colors or to smooth transitions. Our eyes do the job for us when we look at individual strokes or dots of color. (Mikki Root Dillon)
The direct, colourful nature of pastels is ideal for capturing the qualities of immediacy, spontaneity and sparkle. (Patricia Greenwell)
One of the great advantages of working in pastel is that the medium allows the artist to address both value and color simultaneously... value, depending on the degree of pressure used in its applications. (Sidney Hermel)
To clean pastels, drop in a covered container half full of a fine consistency dry cereal... Put the lid on and gently swirl around a little. Then use a good-sized sieve to retrieve the pastels. (Rita Mackenzie)
I cringe when someone refers to pastels as chalk but it really grates when people call them crayons, as in 'I just can't believe you can do that with crayons!' Are they referring to those waxy things children use? (Amanda McLean)
Pastel is possibly the purest form of painting – we work with pure pigment and little else! (Amanda McLean)
I am a pastelist, for the most part, but much of my inspiration for pastel work comes from oil. (Ron Monsma)
As soon as I began blending those beautiful sticks of pure pigment with my fingers, I was hooked! – a medium with no drying time and such a tremendous variety of hues... (Kathryn Mullaney)
Too much sparkle can detract from the focal point of the painting, so I blend some areas to tone down the look of the pastels in less important areas. (Paul Murray)
Some people like to blend the colours to produce images with a high degree of surface finish – rather like oil painting techniques. Other people believe that much of pastel's attraction lies in its grainy, rough texture and loose network of individual strokes. Many people like to use both effects. (Grace Paleg)
Like an alchemist... transmute dusty, dry, opaque pastel into fluid, shiny transparent effects. The solid becomes transient. (Janine Parsons)
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