Pastel on kraft: colour on a warm ground
Why brown paper does half the work, and how to build skin from just three colours.
January 2026 · 1 min read
When you work on white paper you have to build every mid-tone yourself. Kraft paper is already a warm mid-tone, which means half the journey is done before you start.
On this ground only two moves remain: place the light of the face with a pale colour, and the shadows with a dark one. The paper’s own colour becomes the third skin tone. Most of my pastel portraits are exactly these three layers.
