By Tissa Hewavitarane

Pastel is a favourite drawing medium

Pastels are a vastly underated medium and I wish they were given more credit. They have much to offer in terms of richness of colour and work well with other media. They are also more permanent than any other medium such as watercolour which fades. Pastels can be messy but this does not make them exciting to work with.

There is a marvellous variety of pastels available. They include soft, hard and scenic pastels. They all have their own qualities, do try them out. Map out the shapes with hard chalk first and then gradually use the softer pastel which have more vibrant colours.

A pastel drawing done of a dog

It is also cheaper working this way since soft pastels are expensive. Pastels can be applied to a variety of papers including cardboard, fine textured sandpaper and toned papers which can glow though and enhance the pastel colours.

Soft pastels can be broken up with the fingers and ground or smudged on to the surface of a paper to create the effect of a damp piece of paper as a wash. Pastels work well too, over colours etching.

The only snag with them is that they need to be fixed to stop the pigment coming off the paper. You could use hair spray for this purpose. If you use sandpaper, you do not have to fix the pastel, but merely shake off the excess.

One of the most attractive aspects of soft pastel is that it is both a drawing and painting medium. By making broad sweeping strokes with the side of the pastel stick you can represent the animal's fur, while the texture of a rough haired animal could be described by a series of short lines of varying thickness. Pastel sticks are well worth considering for animal subjects, particularly those where you want details rather than broad effects.

These are simply the sticks of pastel encased in the wood, slightly harder than normal pastels and more controllable. They are often used in combination with soft pastel to add areas of detail.

Pastel has a favourite drawing medium to render the soft folds and sharp highlights of different materials. Pastel artists who use colour thickly building up in layers usually apply fixatives between stages to allow the new colours to adhere to the old ones. Remember that a heavy build-up of blended colour will give the smoothest effect.

The most reputed pastel artist in Sri Lanka was the late Saraswathi Rockwood. She was an artist of rare versatility and technical accomplishment.