Tips for using Soft Pastel with Pastel Pencils

I have talked in various blogs and on our weekly podcast about combing soft pastel and pastel pencils. I always prefer to use soft pastels on top of pastel pencil artwork as an "enhancement". Both products are slightly different in their texture and you will find that if you try to reverse the mediums i.e. pastel pencils on top of soft pastel - they will scrape off.The range of faber castell 24 soft pastel sticks we sell on our art store are primarily used as add ons, to enhance the already vibrant pastel pencils. This is if you feel that after using the pastel pencils, there is a need for enhancement. But in my experience, once the soft pastel goes on top, I wouldn't recommend trying to pastel pencils back on top of that.Soft Pastels work brilliantly for the backgrounds of my pictures. If you look at the Victorian Children or Prowling Tiger, I used pastel pencils to start with on the background. I then applied some Polychromos Pastel Sticks which are harder than soft pastel but have a higher pigmentation that Pastel Pencils, then after this I put on soft pastel on top to add embellishments and to make it sparkle. You can learn to draw both of these subjects by joining my pastel pencil community.If you are using Soft Pastel on it's own then I would not recommend using the Ingres Pastel Paper, the reason is because it does not respond so well to the tooth on the paper. I would recommend a rougher paper like colour fix as it has a better tooth for soft pastel. Note that Pastel Pencils on their own, do not respond as well to rougher paper and I would always recommend the Sand Coloured Ingres Pastel Paper by Fabriano.What is your experience with soft pastels? Let us know in the comments below.