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What is the difference between oil paint and pastel paint?

People often ask me, "Is this a pastel painting? Wow, I was sure it was an oil painting," or, "Pastel is those crayons, right?" or, "Pastel is what kids draw with, right?"


There are many more questions on the subject, so I decided to help explain this medium, to clarify things a bit, and to better understand the difference between oil paint and pastel.

Pastel Pencils of great quality
Pastel Pencils

Let's understand what paint is.


Paint is made of pigment and a binder. The binder is the part that sticks or holds the pigment onto the painted surface.




Color Pigment Example
Color Pigments

So far, there's no difference between the different mediums (oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor, etc.). This combination of pigment and binder can be applied to paper, wood, plastic, metal, canvas, and virtually any surface you want to paint.





So what exactly is pastel?


Pastel is the combination of pigment and binder in its purest form. Pastels can come as pigment with almost no binder (practically pigment powder like Pan Pastel), they can come in pencil form (these will have a different ratio of pigment to binder depending on the manufacturer, and this ratio determines the quality and durability of the pastel while working. When there is little binder relative to the pigment, the pencil will be soft and difficult



to sharpen, but its colors will be very pure and unique). They can also come in block form (usually elongated), again with varying ratios of pigment to binder.


Pastel paintings have existed for hundreds of years.


Oil Paint


Oil paint is exactly what it sounds like. Paint (pigment + binder) to which oil (linseed oil, walnut oil, and other types) is added.




Oil painting has acquired immense reputation worldwide over the years and has become the main and respected medium among professional and non-professional artists alike.


Oil Paint and Pastel Paint – Advantages and Disadvantages



Oil painting allows for sharp colors, great precision in work, and the ability to paint in layers, thus creating very important color combinations. Additionally, oil painting allows you to paint on almost any surface (aluminum, wood, paper, canvas, glass, etc.).

Oil Painting by Caravaggio
Oil Painting by Caravaggio

The disadvantages of oil painting are that the paint tends to yellow and darken (or blacken) over time. If you want to paint in layers, you need to wait days, and sometimes weeks, for each layer to dry. If you don't wait long enough for the paint to dry, there's a risk that the paint will peel or crack over time. Looking at paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, you can clearly see how the paintings yellow, crack, and darken. There's actually a whole profession of preserving and restoring oil works by the great masters and in general, paintings that have existed for many years.


Oil painting is more expensive. The cost of paints, brushes, canvases, thinners, etc.


A Study Pastel Painting by me
A Study Pastel Painting by me

Pastel painting allows for sharp colors and slightly limited precision compared to oil paints. It has excellent ability to work in layers although the layers in Pastel are more of a mixture of the pigments, creating very unique colors.


The preservation capabilities of pastel paintings are better than those of oil paintings over the years in terms of color changes, peeling, cracking, and such damage. A pastel painting that has been correctly sprayed with fixative will preserve its color for hundreds of years without the need for preservation or restoration.



Working with pastel doesn't require any waiting time between one layer of color and the next.


The cost of pastel painting is much cheaper compared to oil painting.


The disadvantages of pastel painting are that it can usually be worked with on paper surfaces. It can also be used on wood, but this makes it harder to be precise (though I've seen stunning works of pastel on wood) and it's difficult to preserve pastel on wood over the years.


Precision capabilities in pastel are more limited than in oil. This can be compensated for with different techniques, but I'll write about that in another post.


Working with pastel takes more painting time (though with oil, you wait a lot of time between layers, which balances this point).


In Conclusion – What is the Difference Between Oil Paint and Pastel Paint


The decision on which medium to choose is, of course, personal. And in general, it may be necessary to try different mediums. Oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, colored pencils, etc. Such experiences enrich our artistic perspective and open up many possibilities for us to express what we want in our art.


But since many people ask me about pastel, it was important for me to explain this medium, which for some reason doesn't get the reputation it deserves. And in general, it is a medium that is not understood at all among people who engage in painting.


I hope this helped.


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Additional topics worth reading:


- How to prepare the canvas for oil painting

- Why it's important to understand anatomy in portrait painting

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