Thanks a lot for the info. Excellent link! Oddly enough I was watching the video linked at the bottom of that page just yesterday. Actually I am using oil pastel, in particular these, in case that makes a difference. After looking around last night I'm learning that oil pastels seem to stick to a much wider variety of papers, so that is comforting to me. I'm also glad you brought up fixative - I didn't even know about that until last night. I read you can use hair spray. I though of experimenting with that just to see if it works.
I'd love to ask you a couple questions if you don't mind. No pressure to respond if you don't want to.
about pastel paper - since it has all the tooth to it, I feel pastel often looks kind of (grainy?) on it (which I realize is desirable in a lot of art, and is indeed beautiful on its own.) Is that graininess always going to be there if you use pastel paper, or is it possible to get a look of smoothness on it (so you don't see any of the paper's graininess). Is it best to opt for a different paper if you want smoothness? I thought of trying watercolor paper.
Do you have any opinion on blending stumps? I get the impression you can use so many common objects to blend pastels (a cotton ball, tissue, etc.). Is there anything particularly special about blending stumps in your opinion, or can you achieve the same results with other objects? I actually ended up getting some of these clay color shapers.