SUPPORTS, FIXATIVES & SHARPENERS
Pastel pencils make opaque marks that cover black and midtone papers well. While soft pastels bene t from a heavier tooth of paper to hold the crumbly medium, pastel pencil adheres well to smoother paper. You might nd that coarsely textured pastel papers obliterate your nely sharpened tip and interrupt the continuity of a line so it’s important to experiment until you nd a support that you like. While the risk of smudging pastel pencil is mitigated by xing, aerosol xatives can sometimes dull the colours of your drawing. If you plan to use a professional pastel xative, trial it on a sacri cial drawing rst and give the can a test spray away from the drawing to make sure the nozzle is dispersing evenly. Alternatively you can leave your drawings un xed and protect them from smudging with a mount or taped hinge of clean paper. Pastel pencils are often too hard to be easily sharpened with a knife, but their brittle cores can also snap in pencils sharpeners. Use a sharpener that sharpens the pencil at a shallower angle and change your blades. The shorter, stubbier point will better support the fragile tip to give you a more reliable drawing experience.