A History of Pastels

There really is nothing quite as exciting as opening the lid of a new wooden box to reveal the resonating beautiful colours of pastels, they almost whisper “potential”. Artists love pastels because of their extraordinary colour range and for their immediacy and ease of use.

Pastels are made of pure dry pigment suspended in a binder (gum arabic, tragacanth, or methyl cellulose) and moulded into sticks. The softness and dryness of pastel colours allows the artist to control the colour applied to paper using blending or scuffing techniques. Pastels have a very high degree of permanence, but it is important that they may be “fixed” with an