Pastel is an opaque medium, which renders darker subjects well. It is normally used with a coloured, and slightly textured paper. The paper needs to have a "tooth" to help the pigment grab, but this tends to restrict the ability to record very fine details. Pastel is most suitable for larger artwork (A3 and above) as this makes it easier to capture detail in the picture. It is more difficult to reproduce colours exactly using pastel, because pigments cannot be mixed like paints. Pastels are referred to as paintings when all of the paper is covered, and sketches when some of the paper is allowed to show through.

Materials used for your pastel portrait
Pastel pencils.	Now using pre-primed 340gsm watercolour paper professionally screened with Art Spectrum Colourfix Pastel primer.

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