Pastels are known for their soft, muted tones that lend a gentle, ethereal quality to artwork. The pastel palette encompasses a wide range of hues from pale neutrals to vivid brights, allowing artists great flexibility in expression. However, there are some defining tonal characteristics common across pastel colors.
The Inherently Soft Nature of Pastels
Pastels get their name from the pastel sticks used to apply the pigment. The sticks contain pure powdered pigment mixed with just enough binder to hold them together. This makes the pigment itself very pure with a soft, lightly bound quality. Even when applied heavily, pastels retain a delicate, feathery finish rather than becoming flat and opaque.
This inherent softness translates into a muted, hazy tonality. Pastels lack the rich depth and saturation of oils or acrylics. Colors blend easily into one another, further softening edges and forms. Darks come off more as deep shades than true blacks. The resulting look is whispy and diffused.
The Influence of Tinting Strength
Within the pastel family, some colors inherently produce softer tones than others. This comes down to the relative tinting strength of the pigments used.
“Tinting strength” refers to how much pure pigment is required to make a strong, opaque color. Pigments with high tinting strength provide a lot of color coverage with just a little bit. They maintain their identity when mixed with white or other colors. Pigments with low tinting strength need more material to achieve the same intensity. They lose their identity more easily when combined with other pigments.
| High Tinting Strength | Low Tinting Strength |
|---|---|
| Cadmium yellow | Arylide yellow |
| Ultramarine blue | Phthalo blue |
| Cadmium red | Quinacridone red |
Pastel palettes tend to favor pigments with lower tinting strength. This contributes to the soft, hazy nature of pastel tones. Strong tinting pigments can overpower in heavily diluted pastel sticks. Pigments with weak tinting strength need that dilution to achieve adequate coverage. They also blend together more seamlessly.
The Importance of Support Color
The nature of the painting surface also influences pastel’s muted tonality. Pastels are almost always executed on a colored ground rather than a stark white background. The most typical supports are tinted paper, board, or canvas. But painters can also tone the support themselves with watercolor, acrylic gesso, or thin oil paint layers.
This colored base affects the appearance of the pastel layers on top. Optically blending with the overlaying pastel tones, the support color subdues the saturation. Lighter grounds shift tones lighter, brighter supports lend vibrancy, and dark supports mute the intensity. So again, pastels gain their softness in part from the tonal influence of the support.
Connections Between Color and Tone
While pastels can range from pale neutrals to bright, pure hues, certain color characteristics align more closely with the soft pastel aesthetic.
Muted versions of colors better match the low saturation of typical pastel work. Dusty mauves, olive greens, and earthy siennas all read “pastel” more easily than their bold counterparts.
Cooler hues tend to recede visually, aligning with the hazy tonality. Pale blues, greens, and violets maintain a sense of softness even when applied heavily due to their inherent coolness. Warmer earth tones and citrus brights advance more, giving pastel work a bolder look.
Combining colors also shifts tones. Mixing opposite hues together neutralizes intensity, blurring the end result. This makes grays, browns, and other mixed neutrals perfect for creating softly blended areas. Compementary colors like violet-yellow or orange-blue juxtapose without clashing, lending ethereal harmonies.
Light Effects on Pastel
The soft pigments used in pastels lack covering power compared to other painting media. This makes the effects of light extremely important in pastel work.
Light falling across a pastel painting scatters through the translucent layers. This brings out subtle variations in tone, unifying forms and enhancing the ethereal effect. It also intensifies color since pigments sparkle more clearly through the broken color.
Strong directional light creates sharper definition through cast shadows and highlighted edges. This can lend structure and depth to otherwise hazy scenes. But the shadows remain soft, the edges dissolving in characteristic pastel fashion.
Backlighting is particularly striking in pastel work. As light passes through the layers, it mixes and merges the colors. This produces luminous effects, with a fiery glow in stronger colors or a misty haze through paler tones. Either way, light through pastels only amplifies their softness.
Conclusion
Pastels possess an inherently soft, delicate tonality. Their pure pigments retain a loosely bound, feathered appearance. Weaker tinting strength of many typical pastel pigments allows seamless blending with a reduced palette. Colored grounds soften and unify the hues layered above. Mixing pastel strokes readily neutralizes color, maintaining the misty translucency. And illumination passing through the thin pigment layers heightens the ethereal qualities.
While offering a huge tonal range, pastels lean towards paler, grayer, cooler versions of color. Dusty mauves, soft greens, and hazy sky tones capture the quintessential pastel look. Even bold and bright pure hues maintain a softly diffused appearance. This adds up to the whispery, delicate tones at the very heart of pastel’s appeal.
