WHAT GOES INTO YOUR ORIGINAL PASTEL PAINTING
Substrate
For all of my animal art, I use pre-mounted velour paper by Hahnemühle, mounted on acid-free, archival quality rag board. When framing the piece, I put a thick piece of foam core behind it so that nothing touches the back of the painting, thus shaking the pastel loose. I use Kitty Wallis sanded paper for portraits and still life. It’s the best sanded paper out there, I’ve found. It has so much tooth to it you can layer all day on the stuff and it won’t fill up. The sanded paper had been pre-mounted onto acid-free foam core or acid-free, archival quality rag board.
Pastels
Everyone painting in pastel needs a set of 96 NuPastel by Prismacolor. Supplement with Rembrandt, Girault, Senniliar, Unison and Terry Ludwig. They range from hard to very soft and are used for different purposes. The soft pastels, for example are used at the end of a painting for vibrant color – kinda like the icing on the cake. The hard pastels (NuPastels and Rembrandt) are your work horses and a must for fur. Girault and Senniliar are terrific for laying down your base coat which can end up being multiple layers. Get a good set of Derwent Pencils. They have multiple purposes, around the eyes and those tight spots. I have just about every pastel pencil out there but Derwent, Conté, Faber Castell, Rembrandt and Cretacolor are among my favorites.