Pastels Pastels are made from the same pigments used for oil paints. Instead of oils, a binding agent is added to the pigments to create a chalk like stick, which is applied to a textured surface, usually paper. Available in many vibrant colors, pastels maintain their just painted look indefinitely, unlike oils, which can crack and darken over time. Pastel paintings and sketches are created by stroking the sticks of dry pigment across the abrasive surface, embedding the color in the tooth of the paper, sandboard or canvas.
Techniques vary with individual artists.
Pastel can be blended or used with visible strokes. There is no drying time, and no allowances need to be made for a change in color when dry, unlike oil paint or acrylics. Pastels does not at all refer to pale colors, as is commonly thought, but comes from the French word pastische because the pure, powdered pigment is ground into a paste, with a small amount of gum binder, and then rolled into sticks. The infinite variety of colors in the Pastel palette range from soft and subtle to bold and brilliant. Its invention is attributed to the German painter Johann Thiele.