Edgar Degas
Is the artist who is historically most connected with pastel paintings. He is considered the artist most responsible for the transformation of pastel into a major medium.
When he began working in pastel, they were primarily used for portraits, and often as precursors to complete oil paintings. Degas, however, created a very large body of finished pastel drawings.
He worked in pastel throughout his career and in 1880 it became his primary medium. The artist often combined pastel with other media such as watercolour, oil, and monotype, creating rich surfaces with a variety of paint qualities applied in complex layers. Today, many artists mix pastels with other media or will just add water to create wonderful effects to build up the painting from.