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What are pastel colors?

What are the most essential pastel colors for portrait painting?

  • I’ve never used pastels before and I’d like to buy a few to experiment with. I mostly do portraits, with pencil, colored pencil and watercolor pencils. What pastel colors are essential for (realistic) portrait painting? Pastels are quite expensive so I‘m looking for a list of just the top eight or ten or most useful colors. I can’t afford any of the “portrait sets” being sold. I’m ordering online and this website only lists the names of the colors, no pictures of the actual color so I really don’t know what I’m ordering. I'd prefer names of colors over numbers, thanks.

  • Answer:

    It's possible, due to the properties of the pigments, to do realistic portraits with just four colors: Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, and Lamp Black. However, if you have the money, I'd add the following: Naples Yellow Raw Umber Cerulean Blue Alizarin Crimson The last two should be used in moderation to warm or cool down specific areas, such as the cheeks, mouth, and eyes.

kalinova at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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Each brand of pastel uses different color names. Most pastel artists have at least 500 pastels. You should get a set of half sticks, at least 12 colors. To start, Rembrandt is a good basic brand, somewhat harder than the more expensive Sennelier and Gericault. This is not too expensive: http://www.universityartcatalog.com/Rembrandt_Pastel_Sets__15_Half_Stick_Set-p-1215500.html?source=googlebase

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