Pastels continued:

Having considered the nature of fur in my previous article, all that now remains is how to go about creating the illusion of it in a pastel painting.

"What pastels do you use?"

This is a very common question and my answer is simply that I use all and every pastel that I can get my hands upon! In my opinion there is no such thing as a bad pastel, a bad Artist maybe, but each and every type of pastel I've ever used has a place somewhere in my paintings.

My favourite pastels however are the Carbothello pencils made by Stabilo. They are very firm which is great for fine details and at the same time they have a beautiful bright range of colours. I also like Faber Castel's Pitt Pastel pencils and the Conti range.

The pastel sticks I like are the firm square ended ones from Inscribe, Rowney and Conti. I like use Windsor and Newton soft pastels for final touches as they have brilliant colours, but they do need careful handling as they create a lot of dust.