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Soft Pastel Stories

Colourful Chronicles

Learn new techniques, hear artist's stories, and stay up to date on Soft Pastel News.

  • Natalia's pastel collection.

    Pastels – Love from the First Touch

    My first pastels experience happened when I was in the School of Arts at one of the plein airs, during which, students were allowed to take different materials and try mixed techniques.

    Natalia Savostina

    8th September, 2020

  • pastel painting of a rocky coastline and azure sea.

    Finding Yourself in Art

    As artists, we all crave to cut our own path in art and get recognition for work. ‘Originality’ might be an advanced subject, but once an artist is comfortable with their medium, the next quest would be to forge signature work that snowballs the artist up into the next level.

    Henry Falzon

    25th August, 2020

  • Pastel portrait of a dog

    The Art of a Good Drawing

    If you are a beginner to painting portraits in Pastel, this is for you, if you're struggling because you feel you'll never improve or your just starting out, this is for you and if you're looking all around you, seeing beautiful art that you'll never aspire too, this is also, for you. 

    Sue Kerrigan-Harris

    21st July, 2020

  • A pastel painting of a bison on a dusty plain

    Exploratory Sketches

    Do you work from photos or from life? This is not an either/or question. There are pros and cons to either approach and I prefer the best of both worlds.

    Tracey Maras

    7th July, 2020

  • The power of greys by henry falzon feat

    The Power of Greys

    Greys are a vast and complex family of colours that seasoned artists spend a life-time of pursuit in order to achieve and harness their incredible potential.

    Henry Falzon

    23rd June, 2020

  • Announcing more new associate artists featured image

    Announcing New Associate Artists!

    In May we held a recruitment exercise for new Associate Artists and we were overwhelmed with the number of applications. So much so we will have 2 groups of new artists. Our 2nd group will be announced in August 2020.

    Unison Colour

    16th June, 2020

  • A raccoon takes a sip from a stream

    What If? Part II

    “What if?” can lead to a stronger painting. We hear it all the time… “Just because it is in the photo doesn’t mean we have to paint it that way.”

    Tracey Maras

    9th June, 2020

  • Tomas valik hiking for inspiration picture

    Hiking for Inspiration

    Inspiration is an exciting phenomenon because we never know when it will strike us. We can’t force it, we can’t just wait for it, but we can go many ways to stumble over it.

    Tomáš Valík

    12th May, 2020

Colour Chart Guidance

We believe the colours in our web based colour chart are a faithful representation of our pastel range. But with any colours portrayed on the internet, there’s a whole heap of variables which mean that what you see, may not be what we see. That said, there’s some things that can be done to mitigate some of the variance.

Mobile phone and tablet screens tend to be pretty good for colour, so they’re always worth using, when viewing our colour chart.

We hate to say it, but cheaper computer displays, including laptops, can be rather hit and miss, in both colour and contrast, so they might not reveal the depth of the colour, as well as the true tone.

If you’re really keen on getting your computer up to speed on colour representation, you can use a calibration device to reach your display's fullest potential.

With all that said, if you think we’re way off the mark with any of the colours then, by all means let us know, and we’ll give it another shot.