My Nupastel drawing technique
 

I'd much rather draw with Nupastel sticks than with charcoal, Conte, pencil or color pencil.

Because of the nature of the material, the drawings have to be fairly large, though, and their size makes them difficult to frame.

Unlike pastel painting techniques, I can use fixative on the drawings before I frame them or store them.

My surface of choice has been an off-white Crescent Museum Mounting Board. I have a lot on hand. I don't know if the stuff is even made anymore.

The board comes in 40" x 32" sheets. I usually use the whole sheet.

I have to draw accurately. Dark lines are hard to erase.

I "pull" most of my lines.

I just turn my arm to pull lines in different directions.

The point wears down pretty fast so I keep it in reserve.

Blending with the knuckles is nice, but be careful not to wear them out.

I like this fine netting material as a blender. It is not too soft, and it is fairly strong.

The old bristle brush gets better as I wear down the bristles.

The fun begins when I get out the eraser.

I can pull out very fine detail or wonderfully fine lines by working my kneaded eraser into a point.

That's all folks. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Bill,

Thank you so much for taking the time to so thoroughly demonstrate your technique. When I see work like this, it makes me re-energized to want to draw, and to just get immersed in the pleasure of it.

The NuPastel is great drawing material and I feel that the kneaded eraser is one of the most underrated things, period.

Bob Lemler, whom you may know from the Scottsdale Artist's School uses crumpled up bits of old pantyhose in lieu of your toule. I don't even have any old pantyhose, but there's always Walgreens!

Thank you again.

Nupastel technique
 

William,

Do you sharpen your pastel stick with an exacto knife first to get that sharp edge? Is the painting shown done with only one color? Can you show a detail of line quality? Your painting is lovely, very soft and fluid. It makes me want to pick up my NuPastels again. Thanks for the demo.

Jean

Chris,

Pantyhose is too soft for me. Besides, I can just barely bring myself to go into a fabric store to buy toule, let alone buy pantyhose!

And yes indeed, playing with a bit of kneaded eraser in your hand is better than chewing gum or smoking to pass the time.

Jean,

A nice new square ended stick of Nupastel has four sharp edges. I rarely take an exacto knife to a stick.

I probably did the standing figure with at least three diffent colors.

Given the limitations of photography, I'd have to take a closeup shot of a drawing with my digital camera to show you satisfactory detail. Meanwhile this fairly large sized detail, scanned from a 4x5" transparency, will have to do.

Nupastel
 

William, it appears that I was reading your post while you were still posting, and I posted questions before you were done posting! Thank you for the reply to what must have appeared to be pretty dumb questions!

Jean (feeling embarassed)

Thank you so much for posting this! I love coming here and learning something new every day! :)

Renewed Inspiration
 

William you are what I consider a born teacher and I truly appreciate that you take such care to show your technique.

Someone down the street is selling an oak drafting table, one that has those thin and very deep drawers that would just be heaven for storing pastels and colored pencils. Every day I see the table out infront of his garage (he wants $100 for it) and after seeing your beautiful drawings I might just have to buy it and dig out all the supplies

You have inspired me to make a mess and have dust fly all over the place! Thank you!

Nupastel
 

William, thank you for this demo. I will be using your technique today for my studies on Sally. No knuckles though, I like my fingers! Still can't believe that I'm talking to and learning from artists like you. Thank you for this site and all who participate.

With respect,
Jean

Demo
 

William, thanks for this wonderful demo. Just wondering how long did it take to do that drawing? I do life drawings but it is usually quite fast from 1 minute to 20 minutes max. I guess it is more gesture drawings rather than final drawings.

They take several days.

Now that I'm older, EVERYTHING takes several days.

Dear Bill,

I just discovered this wonderful series of posts. They came at a perfect time for me, as I've been doing two or three drawings a week, trying out different lighting setups. Thank you for reminding me of Nupastel. The problem is that "dark colors are hard to erase." Ay, there's the rub, so to speak.

I appreciated the close-up technique photos. Does this mean there's a book out there that I don't know about? I really hope so.

Thank you again for letting us see your beautiful work. It is breathtaking.

Linda

Hi Bill,

I tried NuPastel for the first time and I LOVE it! The handling and control is just superb. Thanks for making me discover this medium.