5 Best Ways to Use Pastel Pencils (fix common mistakes!)

Learning how to use pastel pencils can seem difficult but these 5 secrets will allow you to get drawing straight away! 

These 5 pastel pencil tips will help you overcome these common pastel pencil problems:

1. Lack of details in fur with pastel pencils
2. Pastel falling off the page
3. Pastel pencils smudging and ruining your work
4. Your work looking unrealistic and amateur
5. Grainy work with no substance

1st rule for using pastel pencils

To use pastel pencils properly, you first need to sharpen them in the correct way. Using a normal pencil sharpener often doesn't work and simply breaks your pencils. Even if you do sharpen them with a regular tool, you'll only have a short point and it blunts too quickly.

The most common issues blunt pastel pencils cause are:

1. Too much pastel on the page
2. Thick, clumsy details
3. Lack of accuracy around key features, leading to wonky eyes
4. Inability to change your pencil grip for layering (see below!)

The best way to sharpen pastel pencils is with a sharp craft knife and some sanding paper. After a little practice, it becomes second nature and quite quick! 

1. Start by whittling the wood with the craft knife. 
2. Expose around 2cm of the pastel.
3. Hold the pencil low to the table and twist the pencil on the sanding paper.
4. Clean off the tip with some kitchen towel!

 2nd pastel pencil tip everyone should know

People think pastel pencils are difficult to use because they are soft. The chalk in them makes these pencils crumbly and very different from a coloured pencil or standard HB. However, pastel pencils shouldn't be difficult and dusty to work with when you know how!

Firstly, make sure you have the right pastel paper - this cannot be over stated enough! Getting something like Mi-Teintes is not for pastel pencil work and will make the drawing process harder. To use pastel pencils properly, get Pastelmat. It might be more expensive, but it's worth every penny.

Using pastel pencils on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, prevents your drawing becoming dusty and vague. Instead, you will get brilliant details and a clean work space. See me working on Pastelmat in this comparison review.

3rd thing to know before you use pastel pencils

On the same theme as the right paper, you also need a way to prevent your work from smudging. As you draw with pastel pencils, you hand can smudge the piece and ruin your drawing. Luckily, there is a simple fix that costs very little and also allows you to protect your pastel pencil drawings later on.

Simply get yourself a ream of Crystal Paper (aka Glassine Paper). It's a waxy paper that won't smudge your pastels, so you can rest your hand over it while you draw. This is a really easy pastel pencil hack that will save you a lot of time and frustration!

When your pastel pencil drawing is finished, wrap it in the crystal paper while it waits to be framed. This will protect your work and also allow your to courier it if it's a commission.

Point 4: how to draw realistically with pastel pencils

When people first use pastel pencils, they can often struggle to get realistic results. Now, drawing realistically does take time, of course, but there are some common pastel pencil pit-falls when it comes to realism. 

1. People add way too many details
2. People go overboard on textures around silhouettes
3. People use every pencil in the box

Ok, this is a lot to unpack, but you need to start thinking about these issues if you use pastel pencils. Firstly, I see people create a lot of details, far too many in fact. Too many details will create a drawing that feels disjointed and awkward. You can break this into technical issues like 'too many hard edges' and 'incorrect exposure'. But, to keep things simple, decide on a focal point (usually the face) and as you get further away make sure the details are softer, just like in a photograph.

I also see people use pastel pencils to create far too many wispy hairs and feathers around a subject. Using pastel pencils to create fur is great fun, but too much of this texture makes things look unrealistic. It also suggests that the wind is picking up the fur all around the subject, or, that it's very fluffy.

Lastly, people tend to use every pastel pencil available. Instead, start out with a small selection of pastel pencils. This is much easier to control and will give you a more harmonic drawing. Try this beginner set I suggest for wildlife if you're struggling to know which pastel pencils to use. 

Tip 5: why your work looks grainy

Grainy pastel pencil drawings are no fun and will distract from the final image. To get around this issue, make sure to use pastel pencils on Clairefonatine paper firstly. Secondly, build up your work in layers and mix the pencil around to encourage it into the paper.

If you work too lightly, your subject will appear to have no solidity on the page. I usually work up to the final pastel layer slowly so I can 'undo' any mistakes. Working with a heavy hand can mean you'll fill up the tooth of the card too fast and your details won't show up. 

How to use pastel pencils for beginners

Ultimately, the top tip for learning to use pastel pencils is to give them a go! Find a beginner tutorial to follow and see what happens. Mistakes are a given, but we all learn from them and you might just discover something new in the process!