Working with pastels is usually called pastel painting. It is a way for artists to paint directly with pigment without the intermediary of a brush. Blending can be done with the finger, blending tools or a brush. Pastels come as oil pastels, soft pastels and hard pastels. Health concerns about breathing in dust from the soft chalk pastels have caused some pastel artists to switch to oil pastels.

An oil pastel has the pigment bound with non-drying oil and wax. Quite different results can be achieved using a variety of techniques. For example: oil pastels dissolved with solvents look very different to ones used lightly over the surface of a textured paper. Some wax or oil pastels are also water-soluble. Some artists use fixative to protect the work as the colour remains somewhat smudge-able but mounting and framing behind glass is usually sufficient protection from smudging.

A soft pastel is made to be as soft as possible without falling apart or breaking too easily. The surfaces used with soft pastels usually need to have a tooth to hold the powdery colour onto the surface. Because colours are mixed on the surface and not mixed on a palette beforehand pastels usually come in a huge range of tints and shades of colours. Finished paintings should be sprayed with a fixative for
longevity as the soft colour may not adhere completely to the surface (especially if many layers are built up) and framed with a mount and glass to protect the work, though some artists do not like the look of fixative and simply frame the work. Soft pastels can be used dry or with water and also come in a pencil format that is tidier to use.

Hard pastels are usually square and are often called carre crayons. They have been baked at a higher temperature and their hardness allows finer lines to be made with their edges. Like all artist materials the quality of a pastel is measured by the amount and quality of pigment and the higher quality pastels have little or no filler and the minimum amount of binder required to hold the pastel together.

Every artist develops a preference for a particular brand, often based on colour choice or level of softness or hardness. A beginner would be wise to buy a colour in each brand and as they need to replace each colour buy the brand they have come to like best. Pastel painting is usually done on pastel paper, which comes in a variety of colours and textures, though there is a textured ground for pastels by Golden Acrylics that can be painted on primed wood or canvas so that those surfaces can hold the pigment from soft pastels.

Art papers

Watercolour Papers
Watercolour paper has a “hard size” on top of the paper that allows the water to penetrate and the pigment to remain on the surface. This gives the painting its brilliance and also allows for corrections.
Watercolour paper comes in different textures. ‘Hot Press’ (HP) is the smoothest, it is also a bit less absorbent as it has ben compressed to a harder surface. ‘Not’ (also called cold pressed) has a medium textured surface and is the most popular finish, it is especially good for beginners. ‘Rough’ is highly textured paper and is the most absorbent. Botanical artists often prefer hot pressed paper as the smoothness allows them to be very accurate in their rendering.
The weights of the papers range from 90 lb to 400 lb. The heavier the weight of the watercolour paper the less the paper will buckle when wet. For lighter weight papers (140lb and below) the paper is usually stretched (wetted and laid out on a board and taped down with gum-strip tape, or you can use a specially designed paper stretcher device like the Keba Artmate).
Watercolour papers can vary in whiteness from bright white to a creamy off-white and are available in tinted colours.
Watercolour papers come in sheets, pads, rolls, and blocks. Blocks are pads of pre-stretched paper that are glued on all four sides except for a small space on one side. This allows for painting without stretching and when the painting is dry you can remove the top painted sheet by running a butter knife around the edge from the gap in the side.

Drawing Papers
Cartridge paper is a high quality type of heavy paper used for illustration and drawing. It comes in a variety of smooth textures. It is available in loose sheets, pads (glued or spiral), hardbound and softbound sketchbooks and rolls.
Bristol paper is a strong and durable, all-purpose drawing paper. It has a very hard surface that is heavily sized, polished, and compressed. It is also used for airbrushing.
Other papers that are suitable for drawing include the very popular Stonehenge paper.

Pastel Papers
Pastel paper is used for soft and hard pastels and charcoal. It is usually coloured paper, with the colour chosen being very important as it will be a major component of the finished work. It comes in a few different textures, all with some amount of tooth or weave that will catch hold of the pastel particles. Ingres is a laid paper with a mesh imprint from a screen. Random texture gets its surface from a cloth matt imprint, similar to Not texture watercolour paper. There are a few types with toothy textures from ground cork or sand that are similar to sandpaper. A few come with the colour screenprinted on and some are waterproof for working the pastels with water.
Paper for oil pastels is hard and white and usually comes in a pad with glassine paper interleaving to protect it from smudging.

Oil and Acrylic Painting Papers
These medium to heavyweight papers are usually canvas textured and primed for painting with either oil or acrylic. Most of the papers prepared for acrylic paint are universally primed to accept both oil and acrylic. Paper must be sealed completely if painting with oil paints because the oil will separate out if the paper is absorbent and form a halo of oil around the colours and it will also rot the paper over time. Although acrylic paint can be used on any paper, acrylic painting paper is usually designed to mimic canvas or it is very heavyweight. Oil and acrylic painting papers are especially useful for taking to classes or using in the field and are an economical choice for making a study or sketch prior to the major work on canvas.
You can also get sheets of primed actual canvas (as opposed to the canvas-textured paper) in pads.

Fine Art Digital Papers
Inkjet papers that allow high quality reproductions of your artwork or prints of your digitally designed original prints come in a wide variety of textures and weights. They are coated to accept inkjet inks. They can be sprayed with an inkjet fixative to prevent smudging if that is a problem. They are archival. Sheets of primed canvas designed to go through your inkjet printer are also available.