The Timelessness of Pastels

It seems ironic some people think pastels are comparable to simple chalk, which is limestone and color additive. Pastel is not child's play.

Two circa 1880 Edgar Degas pastels sold for $3,000,000 each in the 1980s in New York City.

Delacroix, Millet, Manet, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec were among the most famous artists to share Degas' affection for the medium in Europe.

Mary Cassatt had introduced pastels in her Impressionist masterpieces to art lovers in America.

Unique Medium
Pastels could possibly be the most unique of all mediums. Its use can range from making a:

Simple sketch
Drawing
Mixed media
Under painting
Finished painting

Stroke of History
Patrons of even the first pastels created in the 16th Century left works that remain as vibrant as the day they were unveiled. This medium of pure pigment is unfazed by time because it lacks the liquid binding agents of media that causes art works to darken, fade, yellow, crack or blister. It is an enduring color agent.

How Pastels Are Made
In its production, powdered pigment is ground into a paste (the French "pastiche" from which the word "pastel" is derived). A trace of gum binder is added and the paste rolled to form sticks.

How Pastels Are Applied
The colors on a pastel palette appear as they will in the final product, not subject to the subtle variations one faces with another media's wet- versus-final dry appearance.

Pastels are arrayed as rainbow spectrums in pastel trays.

The pastelist applies color to an abrasive paper, sand board or canvas surface setting the color firmly into the "tooth " of this surface.

The palest fashion pastel to boldest primary color can be within the artist's range of choices.

The work is executed in carefully blended or markedly visible, bold strokes of color.

With a color stick linking coarse surface and hand, the pastelist 'goes" with the color spontaneously - as if navigating a dry color wave - and with no drying time to halt the process - for as long as the legs can stand.

Each pastel artist creates unmistakably unique and enduring works such as the pastels shown here by Vincent Mancuso.

 Note: Facts of pastel technique and history shared by the Pastel Society of America in New York City,  January, 1993