It is oddly comforting that one is grasping a stick of pastel. No brushes. No water jars. No arrangement that causes you to be indecisive about getting going. You just pick a color and put it down. There is something as simple as that does to your mood. Finding our additional info for latest update!

This is the immediate or rather immediate connection of your hand and your surface which is the pastel painting. No in-between. The pigment is also applied where you want it and that ability, without being too strict, is rather relaxing.

You are not playing with instruments.You are simply. playing with color.You’re just. drawing with color. You’re just… drawing with color.

The texture is also significant. The pastel dragging on the paper is a rhythm. Less strokes, longer, fewer sweeps, less pressure, heavier. In a few minutes, you slip in it unconsciously.

It is repetitive in a good manner.

I have noticed that time does not exist when I have pastels. You start with a bare drawing, perhaps of a landscape, or of some simple mixture of colours, and then, however, you are sucked into little modifications. There they contrast, dull that part.

Nothing feels urgent.

Probably it is the cause of the pastel painting to be more therapeutic than many. Things do not have to wait around to dry. No stoppage of the flow. You are in the process to the end.

The continuous attentiveness of that kind of concentration has a way of tapping into your head.

Mistakes are not very impressive either. You can overlay something or mix it back when it does not look right. It is forgiving and not fumbling. Such balance contributes to an easier relaxation since you do not fear to spoil the entire piece with a single mistake.

And be honest, most of us carry such fear into the creative work.

Even the colors selected are an escape. You do not smear paints on a palette. You take up a stick and putting it to the test. When it does not work, then you transform. Closeness between thought and action is minimized.

That keeps the things moving.

I have had to encounter some situations when I started distracted or a little bit frustrated and halfway through the process of mixing and overlaying, the stress has just. evaporated. Not dramatically. Enough to perceive.

It is non-obtrusive but routine.

It is also tactile pleasure which cannot be described until one tries it. Your hands get a little dirty, the surface is getting rough, the picture starts touching you, not being distant any longer.

It is more significant than it may appear.

There is no need of perfection in pastel painting. On the contrary, it attracts attention. You are conscious of what you are looking at with your very face the colour, the pressure, the next mark and all the rest of it goes away a little.

And even then, that is just what you need.