Pastels, made by machine, have pure pigments of color that are ground by milling machines into a very fine powder. Pigments are then mixed with a medium, usually gum tragacanth or a similar resin, to bind them together. Harder pastels have more binder, or paste, (precipitated chalk). With more paste, less pigment can be added. Brilliance is diminished. Pastelists combine types of pastels, using soft ones for their brilliance of hue and semihard ones for drawing and detail. Soft pastels crumble easily, while harder ones with more binder are more durable. You have a choice between durability and brilliance.

Pastels are frequently referred to as chalk because a filler, usually clay or white chalk, is added to the mixture of binder and pigment. This creates a paste, the word from which pastel got its name. Filler allows for making many shades of pastel colors. Filler gives pastels more opacity. After the different ingredients for pastels are combined, the product is moistened and forced under pressure through machines that create cylindrical shapes. Then the pastels are cut, shaped and dried in trays.

The amount of chalk added determines the lightness of shade, and those with more chalk are cheaper to produce. Black is added to some sticks of each color so that a full range of shades may be produced, from the palest to the most vivid and dark colors. Pigments used in making pastels are the same pigments that are ground for use in making oil and watercolor paints. The process involved in creating each medium is what makes them different.

Of course handmade pastels are produced differently. Usually there are binding and preserving solutions made and used. With mortar and pestle the selected color pigments are ground and combined with either white or black pigments to create many values of the color, and then mixed with binding and preserving solutions. They are then rolled by hand and placed on absorbent paper to dry. The use of rubber gloves and masks, to keep particles from being absorbed into the skin and lungs, is most important.

Techniques of application:

1. using the tip of the stick for linear strokes
2. with the side or a broken piece to cover larger areas. Hard pastels are good for this.
3. stippling with dots and/ or dashes
4. rubbing to blend colors or edges
5. different values from hard or soft pressure
6. blending the first layer with alcohol or water
7. creating texture by working on sanded surfaces
8. using an underpainting of acrylic, gouache, watercolor or oil
9. combinations of the above

The medium of pastel can be used to draw and paint at the same time. There is an enjoyable immediacy of translating the image directly to the working surface. It is an exciting medium and the colors immensely varied and luminous. Light reflects from the jewel-like particles that form the surface of the painting.