Why I Paint in Soft Pastel

Whenever I tell someone I paint in soft pastel, there's often a brief pause.

"Pastel... as in chalk?"

Not quite.

Soft pastel is pure pigment held together with just enough binder to form a stick. There's no brush between my hand and the painting. I pick up the colour, put it directly onto the surface and move it around with my fingers.

It's messy. By the end of a day in the studio, I usually have pastel dust on my hands, my clothes and, somehow, my face. But I think that closeness to the materials is part of why I love it.

It lets me work slowly

My paintings are built in layers.

I begin loosely, blocking in the larger shapes and trying not to get distracted by every feather or strand of fur. Then I slowly work my way closer, adding colour over colour until the animal begins to emerge.

There's usually a moment when the painting looks deeply unpromising. The polite term might be "the awkward stage." I have other names for it.

But then an eye catches the light, the curve of a beak settles into place, or the first few fine hairs soften the edge of a fox's face. Suddenly, it begins to feel alive.

Pastel suits that gradual process. It allows me to build softness and detail without losing the atmosphere underneath.

It holds light beautifully

This is probably the thing I love most about it.

Because pastel sits on the surface rather than drying into it, the pigment catches the light in a way that feels wonderfully alive. The colours can be rich and velvety, but they can also be incredibly delicate.

That matters when I'm painting wildlife.

A bird's feathers aren't simply brown or blue. A dark feather might hold violet, green, rust and flashes of silver depending on how the light finds it. Fur changes completely between the soft shadow underneath an animal's chin and the fine hairs glowing around its ears.

Pastel lets me capture those tiny shifts without making everything feel hard or overworked.

It can be both soft and precise

From a distance, my paintings can feel calm and atmospheric. Up close, you begin to notice the individual marks: the flick of a whisker, the edge of a feather or a pinpoint of reflected light in an eye.

That balance is important to me.

I want the animal to feel real, but I don't want the painting to become a clinical record of every last detail. I'm more interested in presence. That quiet feeling that the creature is watching you just as closely as you're watching it.

Soft pastel lets me move between broad, hazy areas and very fine detail. I can lose an edge into the background, then sharpen another to draw your eye exactly where I want it to go.

It makes me pay attention

Pastel can be forgiving, but only up to a point.

There's no waiting for paint to dry and covering everything with another thick layer. The surface can only hold so much pigment before it becomes full and refuses to take any more.

So I have to notice what's really there.

Where does the light change? Which details matter? Which ones can be left alone? How little do I need to add before a feather, an eye or the turn of a head feels convincing?

Those are the questions that keep me returning to wildlife, too. The more closely you look, the more you realise how much you normally miss.

It feels right for the quiet wild

I've worked with other materials over the years, but I keep coming back to soft pastel because it feels most like the way I experience nature.

Not glossy or overly polished. Soft at the edges. Layered. Full of subtle changes in colour and light.

It gives me enough detail to bring an animal close, while still leaving space around it to breathe.

And perhaps that's what I'm trying to do with every painting: invite you to pause for a moment, come a little closer and notice something you might otherwise have passed by.

Even if creating it means I spend most days looking as though I've lost a fight with a box of coloured dust.

P.S. I'm currently working on a new fox painting — no name yet, but it's nearly done. If you'd like to be the first to see it when it goes live, sign up below.

Karen