Cheap Pastels Recipe:
• Quarter cup of rolled or crushed oats (combined with the water to make a binder)
• A quart (just over a litre) of water (preferably distilled so there isn't any chlorine in it)
• Two tablespoons of powdered tempera or poster paint (for pigment)
• Half a cup of unscented talcum/baby powder (for filler)

Step 1: Put the water in a pot and set it on the stove to boil. Add the oats and leave it to boil for five minutes.
Step 2: Pour the oats mixture through a fine sieve to strain out the oats. You'll be using the water only.
Step 3: Mix the talc with the paint powder, then add a teaspoon of the strained oats water. You're after a consistency like dough or putty consistency, which sticks to itself not your fingers.
Step 4: Roll out into sausages, put on absorbent paper (newspaper is a cheap option), then cut into pieces about two inches (6 cm) long.
Step 5: Leave to dry at room temperature, at least 24 hours.

Tips:
• If your pastels are very crumbly, your binder was too weak; add some more oats next time. If your pastels are very hard, your binder was too strong; break up the pastel and dissolve it into some more binder.
• You could use diluted wallpaper paste as a binder.
• Create tints of a particular colour by adding more filler or white pigment.

True Pastels Recipe:
• Gum arabic or gum tragacanth (binder)
• Distilled water
• Pigment
• Chalk or kaolin/China clay (filler)

Step 1: Dissolve the binder in the water in the ratio 1:20 (one part binder to 20 parts water).
Step 2: Mix filler and pigment in the ratio 2:1 (two parts filler to one part pigment).
Step 3: Add the binder liquid to the filler/pigment slowly, until it has the consistency of dough or putty.
Step 4: Roll out and dry as described above.

Tips:
• Gum arabic makes a harder pastel than gum tragacanth.
• Damar resin mixed with plenty of white spirit or turpentine can be used as a binder.