How To Make Pastels

by Fee OShea | General, Tips

Save by making your own There’s no shortage of commercially available pastels. You only need to walk into an art supply store to see the vast range of colors, values, sizes and manufacturers. So why would you want to make your own? There are mainly two reasons. The...

Cheap Picture Frames

by Fee OShea | General, Tips

Is it worth putting your paintings into 
cheap picture frames? A comment on my Facebook page the other day said that the artist would love to get into pastel painting, but the cost of framing the painting was too high. Now I can relate to that 100%, as taking your...

Framing Pastel Artwork

by Fee OShea | General, Tips

A dilemma facing pastellists is the framing of their pastel artwork.  One of the many attractions of soft pastels as a medium is that they age very well. They don’t crack or fade, so when treated well, they can look just as vibrant after decades or even...

How to Draw With Pastels

by Fee OShea | General, Tips

One of the attractions of working with pastels is that there’s nothing stopping you from just diving in. If you have paper and some pastel sticks, you can get started immediately without needing to learn any ‘correct’ way of doing things. However, once you’ve gotten...

How to Paint Using Oil Pastels

by Fee OShea | General

You might have heard of artists using oil pastels. They’re the younger, cooler kid brother to regular soft pastels, and they differ from soft pastels in that they use an oil and wax binder instead of a gum one. The pigments they contain are the same though, so...

Different Types of Pastels

by Fee OShea | General

Even though there are many different types of pastels they are essentially small-sized sticks that are obtainable in several shades. Using pastels you are able to bring forth diverse moods in any painting. Painting with pastels gives a flexible medium that provides...