Hints, Tips & Techniques for Pastels - Brushes & Erasers
Using brushes and erasers
A soft hair brush is useful for brushing away excess dust whilst you’re working or for soft blending. Hog brushes are stiffer and will blend the colours well into the paper for initial backgrounds.
Paper torchons are sold for use with pastels and these both lift and blend colours. A putty rubber is the traditional blending and lifting tool for pastel artists, usually moulded into a working point or edge between your fingers.
Rescuing Overworked Pictures
With continual work, even textured surfaces will become clogged and it will be difficult to apply anymore pastel. At this stage the surface will probably look overworked. Soak a new piece of water colour paper in water for five minutes, leave to drain and sponge it damp dry. Place this over the picture, making sure you do not move it by mistake. Carefully press over the surface and then lift. A significant amount of pastel will have transferred to the damp sheet. Leave the original to dry, it will then accept more pastel. You might even like the transfer image better and be able to use that too!
A short flat hog brush can also be used for rescues, it will remove pastel dust from the surface, leaving just a background colour. For areas where you want to remove as much colour as possible, a white vinyl rubber is indispensable.