Pastelists have had to learn other techniques to facilitate their artistic needs due to the nature of pastel as a dry medium and applied in a stick form.
These other techniques included blending, scumbling, glazing, hatching, cross-hatching and feathering. These techniques fall under a broad category called “layering” which is when one pastel is applied into or over another.
There are lots of factors to play in the outcome, including workable fixative, wetting t techniques, surface tooth and the relative hardness/softness of the pastel. Anyone who is serious about painting in pastel should be familiar with these basic techniques.
Blending is exactly as you know it – uniting to pastels by gently rubbing them together. Various colour and value shifts can be achieved with this technique. This is one of the most common methods used by pastelists to produce the subtle nuances easily provided to the wet media painter.
It asks for more skill, as a painter can mix various pigments together wet on a palette to a desired effect in advance of the application, the pastelist must be able to do this on the canvas. It’s best to do the blending with pastels of similar hardness or softness.
It is possible to blend a softer stick of pastel into a layer of harder pastel on a surface, but the opposite is not easily accomplished. The harder pastel stick will want to push the softer pastel around, and blending can be more difficult to achieve. Do not apply the pastel too heavily.
The thicker the layer, the more reactive it will be to control. Gently nudge one pastel stick into the other, often going back and forth. Do a softer blend by lightly smearing the pastel with your hand or a very soft brush. Also remember that the more the layers of pastel are smeared, the duller your end result will be!
Scumbling and glazing are not far off from the blending technique just described. Both rely on a thin application of pigment over another in order to shift both colour and value.
Scumbling means using a thin application of a lighter opaque pigment to tint or lighten an area. Glazing means to shade or darken an area with a thin application of darker transparent pigment.
This is commonly done when working with a wet media by applying very little paint in a dry brushing fashion or by thinning paint with lots of medium. The definitions of scumbling and glazing have become associated to their methods of application. Scumbling is done with a dry brush while glazing is done with medium.
The pastelist can find this confusing since the entire application is done dry. The important thing to remember is that both depend on a light, tactile application. By gently dragging one pastel over another, utilizing the stick’s edge, a scumbling or glazing effect can be produced, depending on the hardness or softness of the pastel.
All the possibilities can be better understood by experimenting with soft over hard and hard over soft pastel techniques, as well as light applications of workable fixative applied between scumbled or glazed layers.
The slightly grainy effect produced by this painting technique can be very effective when portraying atmosphere and often heightens the sense of depth in a painting.
Written by: Marleen Theunissen
ATKA SA
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