Pastel Paintings on Location by Don Jusko

Next is the same poinsettia on 1/8" masonite, two coats of white gesso sanded smooth, two thin coats of Golden's Pastel Medium with dry pigment powder added for a slate color.

TIP: When the pre-pastel texture coats were dry I wiped down the panel with a dry sponge to remove the biggest pieces of textured filler. I like paper and I like this coated board. This board is a support that I can use a paper stump on which is a great step forward. It saves the skin on my fingers. I use a soft stump.

To Laurie Seibold:
Art Alternatives Brand Manager
MacPherson's

Laurie sent me a box of 48 pastels. The bright Opera magenta pastel along with bright yellow, red and orange are great additions to go along with the medium and dark true magentas. Eight yellow oxides and orange and red tints round out a beautiful set of pastels with the highest color brilliance and chroma ever made in pastels. Art Alternitive has 42 colors plus grays.

Tip: Thalo blue (cyan) is a very small molecule and very tenacious. I first noticed it getting on my white pastels, than the keys on my keyboard. Latex medical gloves are so perfect for protection and to spread pure pigment around on the support, it doesn't "pick-up" color, it paints with it and spreads it around.

Today is 2/11/10. It is now 3:24 PM
You paint and add color with pressure from your your pastel, when I had it 100% covered, early on, with just local colors and the work was as smooth and blended as I wanted, I sprayed the painting lightly with water. This locks the layer down. Using soft pastels in the beginning is fastest filling the support's texture before this "lock-down. The next time I work on it the colors will have mingled and hardened "stick-hard". Spraying with water allows you to return to using your hard pastels again, and pencils for detailed work.

Tools I need:
Paper towels, a clean water supply, latex gloves, a dry chamois, a clean wet cloth on hand and a 1/4" bristle brush to dust down through layers back to the support again. I keep a blow straw on hand to remove dust. So with this new type of pastel texture in an acrylic base you can erase with a wet rag down to the suport, or use a dry chamois, or a dry stiff brush. With various brush pressures applied you can go below the last wet layer when you dry brush. Wet rag wipes it down to the original surface acrylic textured ground. Use latex gloves or a big soft stump to blend big areas.

Use your gloved finger to solidify the pastel and color smooth down the pastel area you want to harden with a spray of water.

To blend without removing any of the chalk use the latex glove or a small baggie over a Q-tip, your finger will make small piles of pigment, Why waste them, move and solidify the dust with the latex glove. (or) stand it up and tap off the loose dust and blow off with a straw anything stuck on, lay it back down flat. You can spray away. The colors won't lose their dry brilliance after they are dry unlike the way chemical sprays do. Doing nothing to the final pastel is best.

Wet down and dried pastel. Now is the time to lean the dry board forward. You will find the pastel will have hardened where you can peal off layers of color as they were laid. You only need a light touch as the suffice is very receptive to the lightest touch of the hardest pastel. This is a very important feature I think, being able to use a stiff brush down to the layer you wet last. A chamois leather will wipe it clean since the last water spraying also. All that you are taking off is new chalk.

I wish there were a way to cut each 1/2" wide stick into four long 1/4" or eight 1/8" sticks, that would make fine details possible, Prismacolor Pastel pencils will do but they are not as soft. Maybe I could wet them down an roll out a 1/8" pastel.

Today is 2/18/10. It is now 2:11 AM, Finished, 12 days. My Red Ginger is long gone but I got it finished before the last bloom of pure magenta disappeared. The tea leaves are half brown, half green and yellow. The pink Mink is opening more and has lost most of it's pale pink. All and all, I had a great time. I didn't use any black pastel and was forced to use opaque colors. I respect the medium and it's ability to change colors one after another. Blending is the most pleasurable of any media. It's just more fragile than fresco but in a different way.

8-22-13, It's been a couple of years since I did a pastel, there was an orchid downstairs and I thought it would make a good one.
Here's the page it's on, Pastel Orchid
It's not quite finished yet.

What I see on my drawing table, the colors I used at the end, bowl of water, sprayer, small stiff brush, mouth fixative blower, Q-tip covered with a thin baggy, chamois, wet rag and a magnifying glass. I added something new, Dagas used it, a milk casein pastel fixative. Water is a good intermediate fix while the work is still in progress.

Links:

Solitude | 10x10 in. | Soft Pastel on Wallis Professional
Morning Festival | 10x10 in. | Soft Pastel on Wallis Professional
http://www.ldianejohnson.com/gallery/lg-paintings/l-morning-festival.jpg
Sun's Grace | 10x10 in. | Soft Pastel on Wallis Professional
http://www.ldianejohnson.com/gallery/lg-paintings/l-suns-grace.jpg
http://www.cornelissen.com/
http://www.southlondonartsupplies.com/
http://www.zecchi.com/

BRANDS: Hard and Soft Pastels
Hard
Holbein, Grumbacher, Conte, Alphacolor, Sakura Nouvel Carre, Prang Artist's Chalk, Nupastel, Gallery
Medium
Rembrandt, Demco Chalk Pastels, Winsor Newton, Yarka, Art Alternatives, Schwan's Carb Othello pastel Pencils
Soft
Rowne's, Sennelier, Townsend, Wallis
Extra-soft
Schmincke, Unison, Maimeri, Artworks

Pastel Binder
http://www.artmaterials.com.au/index.php?cPath=57_586
Langridge Pastel Medium. To be mixed with pigments for the manufacture of soft pastels. Sizes available: 500ml. Traditional gum tragacanth based binder formulated to provide the best base for the manufacture of soft pastels. This ready-to-use medium is compatible with all the pigments traditionally used in artists' pastels.

Tragacanth is best suited for pastel-making, because it has a very high pigment binding strength, while not sticking to itself. This means that if you have gum Tragacanth on your fingers, they won't stick together.

The Gum Tragacanth (full strength) is prepared with the following ingredients:
* 1 tablespoon of Gum Tragacanth
* 8oz. of Water

Directions:
* Mix the Gum Tragacanth into the water and allow the mixture to sit for 1-2 days.
* The mixture should set up into a gel.
* At this point a mold inhibitor may be added if desired.
* For an even mixture, add a small amount of water and stir the gel with a blender or hand powered egg-beater.
* Not all Pigments react the same when water and binder is added to them, they must therefore be blended with varying Gum Tragacanth solutions and Champagne Chalk, which makes hard Pastels softer.

* In order to adjust for the required varying levels of Gum Tragacanth, the Gum Tragacanth should be thinned into the following proportions:
A)   Full Strength
B)1 Part Solution A) to 2 Equal Parts Water (30%)
C)1 Part Solution B) to 2 Equal Parts Water (10%)
D)1 Part Solution C) to 2 Equal Parts Water (3%)
E)1 Part Solution D) to 2 Equal Parts Water (1%)

How to Make Pastels
* Place a small mound of Pigment onto a clean non-porous surface.
* Add a small amount of the Gum Tragacanth Solution
* Work the Gum Tragacanth into the Pigment with a palette knife or for larger quantities mix in Mortar and Pestle or with a Muller.
* Work Mixture into a rubbery consistency. If the dough is too wet it sticks to paper and if its too dry the pastels will fall apart before they dry.
* Roll the dough on newspaper, until a pastel stick shape is formed.
* Allow Pastel Sticks to dry for a day or two, before use.

This is the basic formula for Pastel Making. To figure out required Gum Tragacanth Solutions and amounts of Champagne Chalk, further experimentation is suggested.
Generally to allow for smoother mark making, most Pastels require an addition of Champagne Chalk. With most Pigments (especially the Organic Manufactured Pigments like PR122 and PB15) the Pastel Dough can be adulterated extensively with Champagne Chalk, without compromising the color's richness. Here is a partial list of binder solutions and pigments that work well together:

Solution B)
Titanium White
Titan Buff (Natural Titanium)
Iron Oxide, Black Bluish
Ultramarine Blue, greenish light
Ultramarine Blue, reddish
Ultramarine Red, pink
Ultramarine Violet, Medium Blue
Ultramarine Violet, Reddish Dark

Solution C)
Zinc Oxide
Slate Grey, neutral grey
Permanent Yellow HKA
Raw Sienna
French Ochres
Iron Oxide Mars Red
Persian Red
Terre Ercolano

Solution D)
Champagne Chalk
Bologna Chalk
Kaolin
Blanc Fix
Ivory Black
Yellow Iron Oxide
Hematite (not fine grind)
English Red

Solution E)
Italian Dark Ochre, transparent orangish
Burnt Umber, Cyprus, very dark
Fawn Ochre, German light
German Ochre, light warm brownish
Satin Ochre, greenish brownish
Bohemian Green Earth
Pompei Red