From a First Gradient to a Finished Floral, with What Each One Teaches You
Introduction
You have a box of pastels and a blank sheet of paper, and no idea what to paint. It is one of the most common places to get stuck, and the fix is not more theory. It is a small project you can finish today.
Here are nine ideas, arranged from the simplest to the most complete. Each one teaches something specific, and each one can be done in a single sitting. You do not need to follow the order, though starting near the top gives you skills the later projects will use.
If you are completely new to the medium, Pastels for Beginners: Unlocking the World of Pastels covers the basics first.
Before You Start
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| Three ways to get pigment onto the paper. Each one gives a different result. |
Two things make every project below easier.
The first is how you apply the pastel. You can draw with the stick directly, scrape it onto the paper, or scrape it into a small dish and pick it up with a cotton swab. The stick gives you speed, scraping gives you smoothness, and the dish gives you the most control over intensity. I compare all three in How to Blend Pastels.
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| Layering builds intensity. Blending softens the transition between colors. |
The second is the two techniques you will use constantly: layering, which builds intensity gradually, and blending, which softens the meeting point between colors. Almost everything below is some combination of the two.
You will also need paper with some texture. Regular printer paper will fight you. I tested five surfaces in Best Paper for Pastels if you want to know what works.
1 - A Simple Gradient
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| Start light and build toward dark. The single most useful habit in pastel. |
What it teaches: control over intensity, and the habit of working from light to dark.
Choose one color family and pick three to five sticks in it, from the palest to the deepest. Lay the lightest across the whole strip, then add the next tone over part of it, and keep going, blending the meeting points as you move along. The goal is a smooth run from light to dark with no visible steps.
This sounds basic, and it is the exercise most beginners skip. It is also the one that prevents the most problems later, because building from light to dark is far easier than trying to lighten something that went too dark.
2 - Leaves in Different Greens
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| The same leaves, four different color decisions. |
What it teaches: tonal variation within one color, and how a small change of hue transforms a piece.
Draw or print a simple leafy branch and color it four times, changing the greens each round. Try a fresh yellow-green, a deeper blue-green, then add warm accents like ochre or brown to some leaves. The shapes stay the same, so all your attention goes to color.
This is a quick project with a high return, because it teaches you that a color is never just one color.
3 - A Sphere
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| Left, oil pastel. Right, soft pastel. The same exercise in two materials. |
What it teaches: volume, light, shadow, and cast shadow, all in one simple shape.
Whenever I try a new material, I paint a sphere. It contains almost everything: a highlight where the light hits directly, a midtone, a core shadow on the object itself, a shadow cast onto the surface, and a soft edge that keeps it from looking flat.
Draw a circle, decide where the light comes from, and build the tones around it. Keep the lightest area untouched, or lift it back later with an eraser.
If you have both soft and oil pastels, do it twice, one with each. The difference between the two materials becomes obvious immediately, which is exactly what Soft Pastels vs Oil Pastels vs Hard Pastels describes in detail.
4 - A Simple Flower
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| One flower, a few petals, and a first attempt at soft shading. |
What it teaches: soft shading inside small shapes, and how to keep petals from looking flat.
Draw a simple flower with five or six petals. Lay a light color across each petal, then add a slightly deeper tone near the base where the petal meets the center, and blend upward. Add a small amount of a second color, such as yellow or orange, at the tips or the center.
The whole project takes minutes and gives you the foundation for every floral piece you will paint later.
5 - A Simple Object
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| A simple object with flat color, good for practicing edges. |
What it teaches: controlling edges, filling a defined shape, and combining several colors within one object.
Pick something with a simple silhouette: an umbrella, a mug, a balloon, a house. Outline it lightly, then fill each section with a different color, working carefully at the boundaries. The challenge here is staying inside the shape while keeping the color even.
This is a good project for oil pastels, because their intensity suits clear, graphic shapes.
6 - A Sunset Sky
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| Warm colors, a soft horizon, and the paper left white for the sun. |
What it teaches: large soft transitions, and reserving the white of the paper for the brightest point.
Lay yellow near where the sun will be, then orange around it, then pink, then a cooler tone toward the edges, blending each meeting point. Leave a small circle of paper completely untouched for the sun. Add a horizon line and some darker shapes for hills, then vertical strokes below for reflections on water.
The satisfying part of this project is how quickly it starts to look like something, which makes it a good confidence builder.
7 - A Flower with Volume
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| Petals with real volume, and a background built around them. |
What it teaches: everything from the previous projects, combined.
This is the step up. Paint a few flowers with actual dimension: light on the side facing the light source, deeper tone where petals overlap and curve away, and a background that supports rather than competes.
Work the flowers first, then build the background around them, keeping it softer and less saturated so the flowers stay the focal point. This is where the gradient exercise from project one pays off.
8 - Pastel Over Watercolor
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| Watercolor first, dry completely, then pastel on top. |
What it teaches: how two materials can do what neither does alone.
Paint something simple in watercolor, let it dry completely, then use pastel on top to deepen shadows, add luminosity, or soften edges. Watercolor gives you transparency and fast coverage; pastel gives you velvety tone and the ability to build light over dark.
The order matters, and so does the drying. How to Layer Dry Pastel Over Watercolor walks through the full method.
9 - A Coloring Page in Pastel
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| A printed floral design, finished entirely in oil pastel. |
What it teaches: applying everything at once, with the structure already drawn for you.
A printed design removes the hardest part for many beginners, which is deciding what to draw. The lines are there, so all your attention goes to color, shading, and the transitions between shapes.
Two practical notes. Print on paper with some texture rather than standard printer paper, because smooth paper fills up fast. And work with a light touch, building color gradually, which also helps avoid the muddiness I cover in Why Does My Pastel Look Muddy or Dull?.
If you would like designs to work on, the Original Floral Designs Coloring Book offers 72 hand-drawn floral pages you can print on the paper of your choice, with a mix of open areas and detailed shapes.
How to Practice These
A few habits make these projects more useful than they look.
Repeat them. Painting the same sphere three times teaches more than painting three different subjects once. The second attempt is where the learning happens.
Keep your tests. Save your gradients and color experiments in a folder. They become a personal reference of what your specific pastels do, which is more useful than any published chart.
Change one thing at a time. Same subject, different colors. Same colors, different paper. Isolating one variable is how you learn what causes what.
Do not aim for finished pieces. These are exercises. Some will be lovely and some will not, and both outcomes teach you something.
Final Thoughts
The gap between owning pastels and using them is smaller than it feels. Any of these projects can be done in an afternoon, and most of them in under an hour.
If you only pick one to start, make it the gradient. It is the least impressive and the most useful, and every project after it gets easier once you can control how light or deep your color goes.
Which one will you try first? Share your experience in the comments!
