My latest piece: captured in an array of warm siennas and purples, a baby dreams of life’s discoveries and adventures.

Here is one of my latest impressionistic still life pieces. A simple piece depicting two pears. This piece was completed by applying soft pastel over modelling paste.

This is my very first piece completed with modelling paste. It’s hard to see the textures through a photography but the modelling paste provides some wonderful ridges. It does however take some getting use to as it doesn’t allow for super fine detail. I’m still experimenting with it to determine exactly how/when I’ll use it throughout my works.

I’ve been reading up a bit on the difference between soft and hard pastels. I’ve only used hard pastels but from what I understand most artist graduate from hard to soft pastels, and the longer you take to transition the more difficult it is to grasp how soft pastels function.

Right now I am using Faber-Castell Hard Pastels. I’ve been looking into a few different brands of soft pastels such as Rembrandt, Sennelier and Schmincke. They seem like the Rolls Royce of the pastel world but I want to be sure of the change because soft pastels are quite expensive. I surely don’t want something too excessive or something that ends up being inadequate, due to too few ranges etc.

I’m looking at getting one of the the Sennelier sets, perhaps the “half stick set of 120 assorted colours”… it has a wide range of colours but retails for about $70, pretty cheap compared to the rest of the collection.

So for all of you pastel artist out there, can you help me out? Should I try to transition from hard pastel soon, do you in fact use both hard and soft in conjunction? Perhaps do all of the foundation work in hard pastel leaving only the final layers and detail for soft pastel? And which soft pastels would you recommend? This sistah needs some direction…