Pastel
The pigments used in pastels are similar to those used to produce some other colored visual arts media, such as oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation.
In order to create hard and soft pastels, pigments are ground into a paste with water and a gum binder and then rolled, pressed or extruded into sticks.
This mixing of pigments with chalks is the origin of the word pastel in reference to pale color as it is commonly used in cosmetic and fashion contexts.
Pastel paintings, being made with a medium that has the highest pigment concentration of all, reflect light without darkening refraction, allowing for very saturated colors.
SpectraFix, a modern casein fixative available premixed in a pump misting bottle or as concentrate to be mixed with alcohol, is not toxic and does not darken or dull pastel colors.
It is easy to use too much SpectraFix and leave puddles of liquid that may dissolve passages of color; also it takes a little longer to dry than conventional spray fixatives between light layers.
[9] Pastels have some techniques in common with painting, such as blending, masking, building up layers of color, adding accents and highlighting, and shading.
[10] All brands that have the AP Label[11] by ASTM International are not considered toxic, and they might use extremely insoluble varieties of cadmium or cobalt pigments that will not be readily absorbed by the human body.
Pastel was an important medium for artists such as Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Maurice Quentin de La Tour (who never painted in oils),[15] and Rosalba Carriera.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler produced a quantity of pastels around 1880, including a body of work relating to Venice, and this probably contributed to a growing enthusiasm for the medium in the United States.
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Time Line of Art History: Nineteenth Century American Drawings: [Among American artists] by far the most graphic and, at the same time, most painterly wielding of pastel was Cassatt's in Europe, where she had worked closely in the medium with her mentor Edgar Degas and vigorously captured familial moments such as the one revealed in Mother Playing with Child.On the East Coast of the United States, the Society of Painters in Pastel was founded in 1883 by William Merritt Chase, Robert Blum, and others.
[18] The Pastellists, led by Leon Dabo, was organized in New York in late 1910 and included among its ranks Everett Shinn and Arthur Bowen Davies.
[19] Beginning in 1919 de Lemos published a series of articles on "painting" with pastels, which included such notable innovations as allowing the intensity of light on the subject to determine the distinct color of laid paper and the use of special optics for making "night sketches" in both urban and rural settings.
Recent notable artists who have worked extensively in pastels include Fernando Botero, Francesco Clemente, Daniel Greene, Wolf Kahn, Paula Rego and R. B. Kitaj.
