Dragon - 1st try - FABRIANO Tiziano

This is the first pastel drawing of "Dragon". I’m still using Fabriano Tiziano paper. This would also be suitable for pastel painting (I’m fine with you calling it drawing or colouring, because that’s the technique: sketching and colouring in, or colouring without a sketch).

There are three ways to use pastels:

• Pastel chalks, not to be confused with oil pastels
• Pastel pencils
• Soft pastels (tubes containing a kind of paste).

Chalk and pencils come in various hardnesses. The softer they are, the quicker they crumble (this makes the pencils harder to sharpen and they blunt pencil sharpeners in no time!).
The tubes are the most expensive and the colours aren’t always what they should be.
The soft pastel sticks (chalk) contain considerably more pigment than the pencils.

If you have the hard varieties of chalk or pencils, it can be difficult to get colour onto the paper.

Generally speaking, you can mix the colours and work in thin layers. So this is no different from painting. The more layers, the more the painting comes to life.

When it comes to pastels, you want to avoid dust as much as possible. You can do this by using paper that holds the pastel and by applying thin layers.

Hairspray can be used to finish the painting, but it also gives extra grip to a new layer of pastel! This can therefore be a useful aid for those who cannot afford the more expensive paper. Do bear in mind, however, that it can darken the colours. This also applies to fixing sprays.

Each type of paper requires its own technique. It is therefore important to know what you want your final result to look like.
Smooth paper is more suitable for a soft appearance, as is Pastelmat (a type of fine sandpaper), rather than Tiziano, which is simply a thicker paper with a tint and a specific texture pressed into it. This paper is suitable for sketches, rougher work (large sheets) and if you perhaps want a specific texture. For example, a wall, a rock or the scales of a fish. In that case, you could make good use of the visible texture of this paper.

Dragon’s method:
After making a sketch, I tried to colour it in using Bruynzeel pastel pencils. I don’t like colouring in! I applied two to three layers and the colours were almost impossible to spread or blend. I tried using a sponge, cotton buds, a wad of kitchen roll and my finger. The result was dismally poor.

The next step was to try spreading the pigment with a damp brush. I used water, not alcohol. Alcohol evaporates and I think it’s a waste of money.
The result was barely visible. It’s more that the pigment gets wiped off rather than spread (so the same effect as trying to cut out or blend pencil marks). Personally, I don’t like the brushstrokes and this also felt like pointless extra work. After a bit of sky, the mountain peaks and the rear wing, I gave up and grabbed the Rembrandt soft pastels. These turned out to be easy to blend over the pencil. After filling in various colours, I could simply smudge them into the desired areas. With the soft pastels, I applied about 3–4 extra layers.

I didn’t have any trouble with dust; I didn’t need to blow the chalk away or brush it off. Chalk contains enough pigment to work in thin layers, so you don’t need to cover the entire paper. After all, pastels are usually smudged out.

I think the end result turned out quite well. What is clearly less effective is using pastel pencils on this paper. I also couldn’t use the pencils over the pastel chalk. This may be down to the pencil itself or certain colours. Perhaps I’ll try those pencils out on different paper one day.

_{21-5-2026
Materials: Fabriano - Tiziano-paper; colour: prato, Bruynzeel pastel pencils, water, round brush, Rembrandt soft pastels}