Pastel is a beautiful medium combining drawing and painting. It enables you to make quick drawing sketches on the canvas, needs only very little preparation, whilst same time yielding the rich layers and depth of colours of paint. The result is outstanding – not for nothing was pastel the favourite medium of Degas, Millet and Manet, frequently used by Monet, Chagall and Toulouse-Lautrec. This medium allows easy blending of lines and tones – and is very easy to correct which is a mercy to beginners. Brachaim prepares her panels, if she doesn't use pastel paper pads which are already prepared, like sanded pastel paper. The panels Brachaim uses are of carton; she simply takes the backside of any drawing/ painting pad; but she uses also wooden panels, which she prepares with acrylic paint in a color which would let her pastel colors "sing". Often she chooses a dark color as background to bring out more the shine of the pastels than when the canvas would be white. Basically you can apply any color besides white or black to your canvas and Brachaim adds acrylic paint to her primer so the pastel color later doesn't sink to much into the ground, what happens when choosing just unprepared paper. The Paper needs to have some kind of tooth or structure so the pastel color can stick to it and you can work in layers. Sometimes, for to receive a more rough structure for the surface Brachaim mixes wood shavings or sand into the primer.
