Homemade Pastels - WetCanvas: Online Living for Artists

This topic has 352 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 1 month ago by Richard Barrere.

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April 13, 2012 at 10:29 am #989571
autolisp
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I’m new to pastels and have two questions that I hope someone will be able answer. I want to make some pastels. I don’t want to invest in lots of pigment that may never get used. Could I use tubes of watercolour paints I have or could I also use poster paint (ready mixed)? Does anyone know of a ‘Homemade Fixative’ recipe and method of application?

Thank you
autolisp

I'm not a new member. But the database thinks I am!
April 13, 2012 at 11:21 am #1160037
lumiere33
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there are recipes to make soft pastels on the internet. I’ve tried several times but stopped as my pastels were alwyas too hard. I invested a lot in the ingredients.
as for a fixative, I don’t think anyone has a recipe, except Quentin de La Tour and he died several centuries ago without revealing his secret….;
April 13, 2012 at 11:54 am #1160031
chuas2
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Hi autolisp,
My teacher makes pastels but uses high grade pigments for them. I think there are oils and other additives in ready made paints that wouldn’t allow them to be made into pastels. There’s really not much that goes into fine quality pastels, just pigment and some sort of binder.

As for fixative, I use 1/4 cup NONFAT milk mixed with 70% alcohol, applied with a PreVal sprayer. This is absolutely the best, non toxic, dries without spotting. But the PreVal is important, since it sprays a super fine mist. This is the basis for SpectraFix, which is a casein based formula.
Chuas
April 13, 2012 at 12:05 pm #1160029
sketchZ1ol
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hello
try this link :
https://www.wetcanvas.com/Articles2/11/293/

if , for some reason , it doesn’t work ,
go to the Content Area on the toolbar at the top of the page ,
click and scroll down .
> fifth item down is Article Index , click that and scroll to Pastels .
you should find Making Handmade Pastels .

some folks make their own custom colours
with their stubbies and/or their broken bits/collected tray dust ;
grind them to powder , add water a bit at a time and shape a new stick .

be sure to take the precautions that are mentioned in the article .

Ed :}

a different world cannot be made with indifference
April 13, 2012 at 3:34 pm #1160039
autolisp
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chuas2. Thank you for the reply. I know there is Glycerin in watercolour paint in tubes. I’m not sure there is any oil in them though. I guess I will just have a go and see what happens. I like the fixative recipe. Is the alcohol Vodka or other spirit drink, or could I use Isopropanol instead? How long does it store unused for?

sketchZ1ol. Thanks for the link. It does make the homemade pastel idea feasable.

lumiere33. That is the trap I did not want to fall into. I get into enough trouble at home without compounding the evidence!

autolisp

I'm not a new member. But the database thinks I am!
April 13, 2012 at 5:09 pm #1160032
chuas2
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Autolisp, I’ve never used anything except 70% Isopropyl alcohol. The woman I got this recipe from also only uses Isopropyl, although there’s nothing that says you couldn’t try other kinds of alcohol.

I mix up a new batch every week unless I’ve used it up. And the milk has to be very fresh, or it curdles. If the weather’s cool I keep it in my studio. If it’s hot out, I put it in the refrigerator when I’m not using it, but it doesn’t tend to go bad quickly.

Hey and as for the pastels, try it! Maybe you’ll make oil pastels!
Chuas
April 13, 2012 at 7:13 pm #1160030
sketchZ1ol
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hello
if you like the milk=casein idea , invest in an airbrush package .
> less money in the long run ,less garbage than empty compressed air containers
and the machining for the nozzles is more exact and durable .

i haven’t tried stripping down dried watercolour/oil tubes
and then using the chunks like pastel …
an interesting idea , but doesn’t sound practical for
isolated mass-production .

Ed :}

a different world cannot be made with indifference
April 13, 2012 at 9:10 pm #1160024
jeaneade2001
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Chuas, I like your fixative formula, I must try it. I did get some Spectrafix, I made enquiries at a little art supply store about an hour away from here, I asked if she could find out if there was any stockist in Australia and she actually imported some in for me … Which worked out a bit expensive by the time she put her markup onto it, and I added the Vodka. I could have imported it cheaper myself with our dollar the value it is against yours, but I felt obliged to buy some after she went to the trouble. Nice fixative, but yours would cedrtainly be cheaper. Thanks for the tip.

Jean
April 14, 2012 at 2:48 am #1160038
SSB
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Watercolors sometimes have clove oil and or other essential oils that may not be good in pastel, as well as flow agent, dispersant, humectant etc. But still you could try…

One thing about the remaking of crumbs is that those crumbs already contain all the “additives”, maybe just some chalk or clay maybe more. I think some earths can be formed with absolutely nothing more than itself, but any synthetic (which includes most earths today) will need additional ingredients.

I think the way most people do it is by making a master batch of “additive” and then adjusting the amounts for special needs pigments, like the linked article states. Alan Flatmann’s book has I think the same recipe.
April 14, 2012 at 3:45 am #1160040
autolisp
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This is turning out to be a great thread. Lots of interesting suggestions. Thank you everyone

autolisp

I'm not a new member. But the database thinks I am!
April 14, 2012 at 4:46 am #1160028
Colorix
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Considering that watercolour dries into cakes that are very hard and brittle, considering the binder in them is gum Arabic, I don’t think they’d make good pastels.

After all, they do have the same pigments in them, so the reason they behave differently is what is added to the pigments. Well, you might try to extract the pigment from the wc…

Charlie

Charlie's Site/Blog
April 14, 2012 at 1:36 pm #1160041
autolisp
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As for fixative, I use 1/4 cup NONFAT milk mixed with 70% alcohol, applied with a PreVal sprayer.

Would that be a 25% milk + 75% Isopropanol?

Thank you
autolisp

I'm not a new member. But the database thinks I am!
April 14, 2012 at 3:26 pm #1160021
Deborah Secor
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Pastels use gum tragacanth as a binder. Gum Arabic is much harder, as Charlie mentioned. Pigments are very expensive. Some people have tried using clay or natural earth, but it isn’t “clean”. You’d have to screen it very fine or you’d have chunks in the stick.

Deborah
"All glory to Him, who alone is God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Landscape Painting in Pastels (free online book)
Gouache Blog
April 14, 2012 at 7:52 pm #1160022
JPQ
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I understanded some pastels even use other binders. Becouse one brands says is impossible make stick form one pigment and i know another one which uses this pigment not in pure but with little amount ivory black but still. etc. I think there is no big reason make them itself expect if you really need some extremely weird/rare colours. i have ideas few but i cannot make them…
April 15, 2012 at 4:02 am #1160042
autolisp
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chuas2. I made up some fixative using non-fat (skimmed milk) with Isopropanol. It did not make a very good emulsion, the milk seemed to form very tiny pieces in the liquid. However. I did spray it using a ‘hand perfume’ pump type sprayer. So the ‘bits must have passed through the nozzle. Is this what I should expect?

Thank you
autolisp.

I'm not a new member. But the database thinks I am!
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