Pastels... Is it Drawing or Painting?

The Quiet Oracle — Pastels, 10" x 10"

It's a question I get asked more than you might think, and still something I mull over in my own mind at times! Someone looks at my work and they tilt their head and ask — so is that a drawing or a painting? And much of the time it feels like drawing to me too. (Though occasionally the question is — is that a photograph?!)

It's both. And neither. And even after years of working in pastels, I still catch myself saying "drawing" out of habit — because when you're holding a dry stick or a pastel pencil, the word "painting" just feels a little funny. So don't be surprised if you hear me use the two interchangeably — depending on the technique or tool I'm using at the time, both feel equally right!

But let me explain why the art world calls it painting anyway.

Pastels are a dry medium — pure pigment bound with just enough binder to hold its shape. No water, no solvent, no brush. So in terms of tool and process, it certainly looks like drawing. And when I'm working with pastel pencils, it genuinely feels like drawing. There's no getting around that.

Where it shifts is in how pastels behave as a whole. Whether I'm using PanPastels applied with soft sponge tools, pastel pencils for fine detail, or sticks for broad coverage, the process of building a piece is fundamentally painterly. I'm layering, blending, mixing colour directly on the surface, constructing light and shadow — making the same core decisions as any painter. The results — depth, luminosity, richness of colour — are unmistakably painterly too.

That's why the art world landed on pastel painting. The intent, the process, and the outcome align much more closely with painting as an art form, even if the tools feel otherwise.

There's a historical argument too. Pastel has been used for centuries and was embraced by painters — not illustrators — long before it ever found its way into my studio. The medium has always sat comfortably in the world of fine art painting, even if the tools tell a different story.

In my own work creating detailed animal portraits, I think about this constantly. So my answer? It's a dry medium that functions very much like paint. Call it drawing, call it painting — honestly, I often call it creating. Because at the end of the day, that's fundamentally what we're doing, regardless of the medium, technique, or tool.

Maya — Pastel Pet Portrait, 8" x 10"