Digital pastel techniques

Jade Mosch uses her traditional pastel skills to produce a stunning piece of illustrative art, inspired by Asian themes

Swiss artist Jade Mosch uses traditional pastel skills to produce a stunning example of illustrative art.

The main differences between digital and traditional painting are that with digital we have the possibility of going back in time on your art, as well as the use of layers, and an amazing palette of post-production tools at our disposal.

Unfortunately, having all these digital tools can also help make our working process chaotic and disorganised. We can easily become lost among numerous layers and effects. My way of working is much simpler. It’s inspired by pastel techniques, but adapted to the digital way of doing things. Pastel is a traditional painting method that uses dry media. They’re little sticks of pigment powder that you squeeze over the paper. Unlike oil or acrylic, it’s volatile and very easy to drag over your picture. Basically, it’s a cyclical approach where you blur a bunch of colours together, and then go back to define your subject. The result is a richly coloured picture. In my painting here I’ll be using this process – only digitally, of course.

I’ll also reveal some tricks for not getting lost in your canvas – even if you’re a disorganised person like me! Actually, when you work digitally there’s always a way to save your picture. I’ll work over a traditional line, and show you how powerful layer effects can be.

For this workshop, it’ll be helpful if you’re already familiar with the Channels and Layers panels, because these will be the main tools I’ll be using. And I’ll paint with only a few basic Photoshop brushes – let’s keep things simple!