Exploring Colored-Chalk pastels
- careandbear16
- Mar 7, 2024
- 2 min read
Caroline McKinley
Materials & Costs
Medium: VIOLETTO Soft Chalk Pastels $14.85
Pastel accessory kit: $8.99
Black sketch pad: $12.99
Krylon K01306 Workable Fixatif Spray Clear: $8.28
(links accessible at bottom of site)
Age Appropriateness
I’d recommend this medium for 5th grade up due to the time consumption. When working with chalk pastels there is a lot of repetition of shading and blending. The material applies vivid and bright yet may fade and change color in the process. I cannot stress re-application enough. Younger children’s hands have a hard time grasping the small pastels, which may affect their application process. It is also vital to factor in the attention span and behaviors of your students to decide if they are ready to take on the project.
It takes great attention to depth, highlights, and shape. Adolescents have shorter patience and will get easily frustrated when making mistakes. When this occurs it is vital to aid their problem-solving process, It is hard for the creator exactly what you envision, but that’s why art educators are there to facilitate your image and growth of artistic identity
Additional resources or logistics required with the medium
- Workable Fixatif spray
- Blending stumps (bigger size for younger artists)
- Kneaded eraser
Strengths
I was surprised about the amount of coverage they had The Violetto pastels have a great vibrancy and they mix very well together. Although I would recommend making a few passes to keep the hue from fading too much. These pastels are a good medium besides water-based paints to Segway into color theory. None of them snapped in half during the process, which was surprising. I’d say they were moderately good quality for their price and recommend them for kids' use. The black paper contrasted greatly against the color and made it pop against the background. The pastels are also non-toxic!
Limitations
When using the Violetto Colored Chalk Pastels it lost brightness relatively quickly when blending it out. I found to avoid this from happening you apply slight pressure and move your blending tool slowly to keep strong lines/edges. During use little crumbles of the tip came off, which was a single occurrence. It was difficult to create fine lines, especially when the tips were worn down. This is when the thinner blending stumps come in handy. Each time I blended the paper it seemed to get rougher which added a little lint-like texture to the paper. Beware! It gets everywhere! Having wet wipes to the side is helpful since they smudge all over your hands. The colors end up mixing on the side of the palms smudges can get on the artwork. Lastly, the chalk thins relatively quickly so you are going to need to layer color.
Comfort level with teaching and what I need to improve...
After working with these pastels I realized I needed to improve on certain techniques such as fine line. I needed to implement different tools to create detail onto a petal. Artist Karen Margulis recommends layering all of your colors before adding a detailed line with a thumbtack! I feel moderately comfortable working with this medium.
What is analogous color?
Material links
Colored chalk pastels:
Tool kit
Black drawing pad
Setting spray
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