A great question came up on Instagram yesterday about some of the potential issues with intermixing graphite and white pastel (chalk/charcoal-white.) Mixing graphite with white pastel or chalk/charcoal-white is usually problematic, not because of any chemical reaction, but because the materials behave very differently on the surface of the paper. The issues tend to fall into three main categories: adhesion, optical mismatch, and the (somewhat) unpredictable effects of fixatives (if added into the mix).
From a handling perspective, graphite tends to plate and subtly burnish the drawing surface. Its microscopic flakes (called basal planes) are flat and slightly greasy, and under pressure (especially when using soft grades like the average 4B+) they align and create a smooth, semi-glossy layer. This slick surface reduces the paper’s tooth (texture), which is precisely what pastel needs to physically adhere. Without that tooth, lower-binder materials like white pastel can’t anchor well and instead tend to skate, cling unevenly, or dust off entirely. Drawing resources like ours consistently warn against overly smooth surfaces for this reason, emphasizing that both pastel and charcoal require a textured substrate to hold.
When graphite has already polished the surface, the mechanical key that pastel relies on is essentially lost. Conversely, applying graphite over white pastel presents its own problems: the graphite doesn’t adhere evenly, and instead of darkening cleanly, it may sit on the pastel layer in a patchy or streaky way, producing apparent “unstable” tones. This is especially noticeable when trying to alternate light and dark layers, as neither material integrates cleanly with the other once surface disruption has occurred. The more the surface is worked or compacted, the harder it becomes for either medium to perform predictably. This makes back-and-forth layering between graphite and pastel inherently limited unless surface texture is carefully preserved from the start.
The materials also don’t share binder systems. Graphite pencils often contain small amounts of waxes, stearates, or polymers, which increase slickness and make the surface more hydrophobic (less receptive to water-based media). Soft pastels and “chalk” or “charcoal whites,” by contrast, are made from bright white pigments like calcium carbonate or titanium dioxide, with refractive indices of roughly 1.6 and 2.7, respectively (refractive index refers to how much a substance bends light. When light hits a material, part of it enters, slows down, and changes direction. The higher the refractive index, the more that light bends—and the more strongly it scatters and reflects. This is part of what gives white pastel its bright, matte look, especially when pigment particles are suspended over air gaps on textured paper.)
These pigments are held together with weak, water-soluble binders such as gum tragacanth. They’re designed to lodge mechanically in the tiny crevices of a textured surface, not to bond with a polished or waxy material film like that left by graphite. As materials experts like Mayer explain, pastel is essentially just dry pigment with the bare minimum of binder to form a usable stick—its adhesion depends almost entirely on surface texture and friction.
Then there’s the optical behavior consideration. Graphite and white pastel reflect light in fundamentally different ways. Graphite’s aligned flakes produce a specular (mirror-like) sheen that shifts with the angle of light. White pastel, by contrast, is highly scattering and matte. It gets its bright, soft appearance from air gaps between the pigment particles, which cause diffuse reflection (meaning light bounces in many directions rather than reflecting cleanly like a mirror). This makes any mixed or adjacent areas highly unstable under changing light: values can appear reversed, and forms can lose clarity depending on the angle of view. The result is that light-range values generated with graphite and white pastel often read as metallic, muddy, or optically unstable, especially when compared to the more neutral, angle-stable combinations of charcoal and white pastel. Instructional programs like ours specifically use black charcoal instead of graphite in intermixing scenarios for exactly this reason.
Fixatives, often used to stabilize pastel or graphite layers, can add their own complications. A light mist can sometimes help preserve surface work and compensate for some mechanical intermixing issues discussed here, but it often significantly impacts apparent lightness or value relationships. On graphite, wetting from fixative can reorient the flakes, intensifying the sheen. On pastel, the same spray can fill in the air gaps that cause light scatter, lowering brightness and making strokes appear darker or more transparent. Even so-called “workable” fixatives (sprays designed to lightly set a layer of dry media while still allowing additional layers to be applied on top), when sprayed heavily, can reduce surface tooth further and alter both the texture and value structure of a drawing. Guidelines from conservation sources recommend horizontal spraying and only the lightest touch, especially when trying to preserve delicate pastel passages laid over or near graphite.
If you absolutely need to combine the two materials discussed here, the workflow needs to be deliberate. Graphite should be kept light and minimal, using harder pencils (like H to 2H) and minimal pressure to avoid burnishing the surface. Reserve any softer grades or heavy graphite for fine accent work, and only after the pastel structure is mostly complete. It also helps to test your fixative (if included in your process) on scrap paper from the same batch you’ll be working on, as even a small change in paper sizing can shift how materials react. On more abrasive or sanded pastel papers with plenty of remaining tooth, it’s sometimes possible to float white pastel over a very lightly drawn graphite map, but once any area is burnished, no fixative will restore the lost grip.
A notable exception to some of this is a material called water-soluble graphite, which, when lightly washed, tends to settle into the paper fibers and lose its surface sheen. I do not have direct experience with it, but I understand it is capable of creating a more stable ground for pastel layers, though binder residues or surface sizing may still limit adhesion. Still, this version of graphite is supposed to behave a bit more like ink and often “plays nicer” with matte media like pastel.
If the goal is clean, stable, and controllable neutrals in dry media, with consistent optical behavior under varied lighting, the best approach is still to avoid graphite entirely in your intermixing practices. Stick with more compatible, structurally similar materials like compressed charcoal and white pastel on a properly toothed surface. This combination preserves matte light-scattering behavior, maintains adhesion, and resists value shifts caused by changes in viewing angle. It’s not about tradition or purity—it’s just physics.
Happy Drawing!