Have you tried using pastels before? I hope you haven't been put off because you didn't get the effect you wanted. There's so many reasons you might not have succeeded. You might have been using oil pastels when you'd have got a better effect with soft ones. You might have been using the wrong type of paper, or maybe didn't fix the painting afterwards. Well, techniques are for another hub, as there's so much to write. I'll concentrate on choosing colours in this one.

Before buying any pastels, have you considered the type of paintings you're going to do? Will you be painting landscapes, still life or seascapes. Or maybe abstract, portraits or animals? You see, for different topics you'll need different palettes.

 I tend to always paint seascapes and landscapes, so I know my colours off by heart, but I still love to go into an art shop and look at their compartments full of pastels of every shade and hue. I just love bringing home colours that I know are going to look good portraying trees and leaves, flowers and plants, or maybe stormy seas. Then again, what about a beautiful beach scene with palm trees? You'll soon get to know what you need.

You can buy pastels from good art supply shops and from companies on-line. I buy some things from on-line catalogues, because they can be good value, especially when I buy mounts in bulk, or canvases for my acrylic paintings. I do buy pastels as well, but if you're starting out, you'd probably be best to go to shops because then you'll get to see the colours first - hand and you won't be disappointed if you receive colours in the post that differ to what you thought.

Please note that the retail prices of materials shown below are for 2009 prices.

To begin with you don't need to buy expensive makes and you can start with a basic palette. You can always add more if you decide you like using pastels and want to carry on. There are expensive makes, such as Kremer which retail at around £2 each, and you can buy Sennelier pastels which are extra soft and they retail at around the same price.

Rembrandt sell a good range retailing at around £1.50 each. Another good make is Daler Rowney which are ideal for beginners as they retail for around £1.30 each and oil pastels around 60p. Faber-Castell make good square soft pastels.

Unison make good selection boxes which work out at a reasonable cost. They come in packs pertaining to the topic you want to paint, so it takes the work out of deciding which colours you'll need to choose. Their packs include "landscape, portrait, starter,heavenly,turquoise and light. Brilliant. Remember that different makers will name the pastels differently sometimes, which is why it is good to buy from a shop first to make sure you're not buying 2 with very similar hues.

Pastels also come in the form of pencils, which are sold in packs. These are brilliant for sketching the outlines of your drawings. There are various makes but I like Pitt Pastel Pencils by Faber-Castell. You can buy a good range from Derwent and a pack of 12 would cost around £15.

The colours below are for soft and hard pastels. Oil pastels come in lots of colours and sets too, so if you prefer to try them instead, you'll be able to buy the same colours, but again, choose from a shop to start with so you can look at them and see what tones they are.
Always have lots of soft, white pastels. They are so handy for highlighting.

 For seascapes to begin with:

To begin with: French Ultramarine, turquoise, prussian blue, sap green, paynes grey, white, turquoise blue, and a pale violet like ultramarine violet, and a darker shade. For beaches and rocks,you'll need raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burnt umber, black and maybe olive green.

For landscapes to begin with:

Olive green, raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, green-grey,grass green, yellow green, black, sepia, and shades for the sky, pale hues of grey like cool grey, maybe palest blue hues like phthalo blue, palest yellow like lemon yellow, a darker blue, maybe cerulean blue, and lots of white. You can add a pale violet, and of course if sunsets, you'd need to keep a red such as crimson lake, bright yellow such as cadmium yellow, and maybe an orange like cadmium orange. Of course if you want flowers, add colours you need.

You can also find tones suitable for flesh, and remember that you'll need differing hues because of the differing tones in portraits or body paintings.

If you have a subject in mind, just make a list of the colours you'll need and you'll soon find you can use those same colours in other paintings, so for instance, it won't be a waste to buy a purple shade that you want to use for some flowers. You can also use it in the future for a single item such as a vase, or a girl's dress, but if you're really adventurous, you can add it to your sky or sea for interest.  Remember, your paintings can be of anything, and in any colour you want.  Be adventurous and pastels come in so many colours you'll find you can achieve anything you want.

Any pastel paper is ideal and it comes with different textures. Ingres paper has a stripe-effect texture. Mi - teintes has a honey-comb grain and they come in lots of colours. You can buy pastel boards and pastel cards. You can use water - colour paper or glass paper, as they have a texture. If you choose to use glass paper, you'll use a lot of pastel because the texture is thick. Use a fine-textured glass paper if you want to use less. I prefer to use a heavy - quality cartridge paper, but that's because I don't like to see a texture to mypaintings. However, if you use a coloured paper, you can leave bits exposed under the pastel to give an effect.
I hope this has been helpful, and will encourage you to give them a try. They really are worth persevering with because you can create stunning works.

You will need to fix them though, especially if you use the pastels thickly. Because of the powdery nature of the pastels, they can tend to lift off the paper. You can buy fixative in sprays from art supply shops, or you can use a hair spray which works just as well. Just with everything though, there are tips to using things and my tips for using pastels will be the focus of another hub. To see some more paintings in pastel and acrylic, visit my website at

www.landscapeartbystella.com

You can see the progress of a pastel painting and the finished result by visiting my blog at the link below.