Coloured pencils vs pastel pencils - which is better?

This post compares coloured pencils and pastel pencils. The title is a bit of a clickbait because, as you can probably guess, not one art medium is better than the other. It really depends what you're looking for, and there are pros and cons to each medium, which I'll discuss in this post.

But first, a very quick intro, in case you're a newbie: most people would be familiar with coloured pencils, we've all used them as kids. Professional artists use better grade coloured pencils which can be wax-based or oil-based (with harder leads). Famous brands include Faber-Castell, Derwent and Caran d'Ache (you can read my comparison of the top artist quality coloured pencils).

Pastel pencils are basically pastel sticks of pigment, encased in pencils. Popular brands are Stabilo, Faber-Castell and Derwent.

 

Texture

Pastels are soft and chalky. Just a light swipe will give you instant colour. Because they're practically pure pigment, you can layer light colours over dark (not indefinitely though, depends on the paper). Hence, pastels are pretty forgiving because if you've made a mistake, you can usually just layer another colour on top.

It's great fun but if you've ever played with pastels or chalk, you'll know that it gets messy! I love pastel pencils because the pencil casing lessens the mess I used to get with pastel sticks, but still, I'll get smudges on my hands, the paper, pastel dust on the table and floor, etc. No matter how hard I try to control it, it gets everywhere and even though the pastel pencils I use are non-toxic, I'm pretty sure it's not great to be breathing in that dust in the long term.

Because pastels are so smudgy, I also have to use a fixative after drawing, to "set" it. Even with two coats of fixative, there will still be some smudging if you run your finger over the surface, so it's not completely full-proof but at least you won't get dust falling off with every light shake of the paper!

Coloured pencils are much lower maintenance. You colour, it stays put. No dust hazard or smudging risks. However, layering coloured pencils requires more thought beforehand. It's hard to get light over dark, so you'll need to draw in the highlights first, or remember to leave the spaces for highlights. Once you've laid too many layers or made a mistake, it's hard to correct without having to erase that area and start again.

Effect

In terms of look and feel, coloured pencils can give very sharp focus, because you can draw very fine details, especially with the harder oil-based pencils. This means that you can draw every last hair or feather, if you so wish.

Pastels give softer and less defined lines, hence create a dreamier look. Some artists can create Impressionist-type paintings using pastels.

You can see the comparison of two kingfishers I drew: the top one in coloured pencil and the bottom in pastel (except for the eyes and beak). The first has greater detail and the second has a fuzzier look. Each has its own appeal, it's just a different look and feel.

In terms of effort though, pastel pencils win hands down. I can draw a background in pastel pencils in half the time I take with coloured pencils. That bokeh background in the coloured pencil kingfisher drawing above took forever. Coloured pencil is generally a very laborious medium. You need patience to layer thin layers one after another. You can't cover large areas quickly, and it can be hard on your hands. One of the reasons I switched from coloured pencils to pastel pencils is that my hand was aching from all that coloured pencil use. Once I move to pastels, the ache went away.

Art supplies

Generally speaking, you get much better colour ranges with coloured pencils. It's not hard to find a single series of coloured pencils offering 100 shades, whereas with pastel pencils, they usually go up to at most 60 or 72. There are also fewer brands offering pastel pencils, so the selection is significantly less. Furthermore, pastel colours tend to be a lot more vibrant, so it's more difficult to find the muted shades, which might be a problem for people like me who like to draw wildlife. 

Most pastel artists don't just use pastel pencils, they're usually just one part of a whole arsenal of pastel supplies, like Panpastels or pastel sticks. Pastel pencils also wear down more quickly, and all these reasons make pastel pencils a more costly medium, even though a box of pastel pencils cost about the same as an equivalent box of coloured pencils. 

Furthermore, pastels work best on specialty pastel paper, and the ones that work best are generally very costly (the cheap paper marked as pastel papers often don't work. You can read my review of two such paper pads). Whereas  coloured pencils, even though they also work better on certain types of paper, are less finicky. They work quite well on most mixed media pads, and can be used on both smooth and textured paper.

My thoughts on both

I started off with coloured pencils, then evolved to pastel pencils as an alternative when my hand started hurting. Currently, I'm preferring pastels because it's quicker, more forgiving and I love the soft effect it gives to animals. 

If you're just starting out, you might wish to choose just one. But what I want to say is that pastels and coloured pencils work beautifully together, so if you have the luxury, you might want to use both! Coloured pencils layer well over pastels, so I can do the bottom layers with pastels, then top off the details with coloured pencils. (Note that it's less effective to do it the other way around - hard to get pastels to layer over coloured pencils)

Since coloured pencils are also better at giving that shiny look, I often like to do the animal's eyes and other hard objects like collars in coloured pencil, while using pastels for the fur, like I did for this pet portrait. 

Who says you have to choose? You can have the best of both worlds!

If you want to see what stunning wildlife drawings can be create with coloured pencils and pastel pencils, check out my two favourite artists on Youtube: Lisa Clough for coloured pencils and Jason Morgan for pastels. They do mind-blowingly realistic wildlife art and are an inspiration to me.