Learning objectives
■ Know your materials
■ Practise wetting pastel layers
■ How to finish and store pastel paintings
I'm passionate about pastels! I love to paint with them, and I derive enormous satisfaction from teaching and inspiring others to express themselves by painting beautiful pictures of their own. There is nothing quite as rewarding as sharing my love of soft pastels with a fellow enthusiast and seeing their excitement as I help them to master a new technique.
The technique that I'm going to share in this article is the wetting of soft pastels, in other words painting with pastels using a solvent, such as water or alcohol, to create a wonderful underpainting. When the liquid is applied, the effect is akin to oil paint in consistency. I chose this technique because, as an artist who loves to paint seascapes, it is one of my own favourites.
