Free Watercolor Article: Watercolor vs Pastel

Watercolor Vs. Pastels

How is watercolor similar and different from pastels? Let's take a look. Here I am referring to soft pastels. You will find that there isn't a whole lot listed under "How Are They Similar?" This is because I believe that watercolor and pastel are probably the most different out of all the comparisons we are making.

Keep in mind that my main painting medium for over 2 decades has been watercolor. I do have a decent amount of experience with all the mediums I am comparing, however my expertise is in watercolor. I feel I have worked with these other mediums enough to have a good knowledge about them, but my experience with them is far less than with watercolor.

This article is not meant to be a judgement of which mediums are better. It is simply a comparison of similarities and differences to help you perhaps decide which one might suit your next choice for learning.

How Are They Different?

Watercolor is a painting medium. Pastels are a drawing medium. True, pastels are closer to painting than colored pencils, but for my definitions I consider a painting medium a medium which you predominately apply with a brush. Pastels are predominately applied with the hands.

In watercolor you work from light to dark. In pastels you usually work from dark to light. Another difference here is that in watercolor it is usually mandatory that you work from light to dark. In pastels, although working from dark to light is typical, it isn't mandatory.

Watercolors are inherently transparent. Pastels are inherently opaque. This is why you must work from light to dark in watercolor; you cannot cover up a darker tone with a lighter tone. Pastels are quite opaque since they are almost just pure pigment. You can cover up just about anything in pastel. Which leads us to our next point...

Pastels are much easier to correct mistakes than watercolor. In fact, I would say that pastels are probably the easiest medium for fixing mistakes. With pastels you can either just use a finger to wipe away a mistake, or draw right over it to cover it up. Watercolor can be corrected to some extent, but not nearly as easily as pastels.

Watercolor primarily uses physical mixing of colors to create new colors. Pastels don't. What this means in plain English is that in watercolor it is standard practice to mix colors together on the palette or paper to create completely new colors with their own properties. In fact, many, if not most watercolor painters have relatively few pigments on their palette. The majority of colors used in paintings are mixed from other colors. With pastels, if you want a new color, you usually use a new pastel stick that is the right color. Now, pastels do sometimes use physical mixing on the paper, but it is usually secondary to using a different pastel stick. So, contrasted to watercolor, most pastel artists have a vast collection of different pastel stick colors.

In watercolor you lighten with water and darken by mixing. In pastels you don't. Water is used to lighten colors in watercolor. To darken colors in watercolor, you mix the color with a darker pigment (usually a dark compliment, or black). With pastels, if you want a darker or lighter version of a color, you typically use a separate pastel stick for the particular tone you want (yes, it can be done by blending on the paper somewhat, but that isn't the norm). So with pastels, not only do you need a pastel stick for most colors you use, but also a pastel stick for different tones of those colors. Again, this leads to most pastel artists having huge amounts of pastel sticks in their collections (often organized by tone and color). Some pastel artists may read this and rail against me here, but I think it is pretty safe to say that you can paint with much fewer pigments in watercolor than you can with pastels. In fact, you can have a full working palette in watercolor with only four pigments. It just isn't possible to have a full working palette in pastels with only four pastel sticks.

Blending and softening is easier in pastels. Here I am not talking about mixing colors, but rather blending edges and colors together on the paper. Now, blending in watercolor is quite easy. Very easy. But it does have a time limit, and some other limitations. However, pastels are the king of easy blending. All it takes is a rub or dab of the finger in pastels and you have beautiful blends. And there is no time limit. You can do this indefinitely. No other medium can blend this smoothly and easily.

How Are They Similar?

Paper is the main painting surface. Obviously different papers are typically used for each. Watercolor uses watercolor paper almost exclusively. Pastels can be applied to watercolor paper, but typically they are applied to pastel paper, which has much more "tooth". In fact, many high-end pastel papers are actually fine-gritted sandpapers.

Coverage is relatively fast. This is comparing these two mediums to oil, acrylic, and colored pencils. I would say that there is a clear spectrum here of how fast you can cover areas with all of these mediums. Watercolor is the fastest. In a close second place is pastels. Acrylics are next, and then oils close behind acrylics. Colored pencil is the slowest by a long margin.

You don't use white to lighten colors. In a point above, we discussed how colors are lightened in these mediums. An interesting point here too, is that in watercolor you also do not use white as a single pigment color. In other words, if you want white in watercolor, you typically have to save the white of the paper. Colored pencils share this property with watercolor. However, in pastels, since they are opaque, you can use white as a single pigment color, and people often do.

Hmm.... I didn't expect this section to be so short. I guess it just goes to show how different these two mediums are!