My way of interpreting a scene is through the medium of drawing. Painters paint; I'm much more at home with a pencil and paper. The way I treat color is as a focal point or connection between elements of a scene, stitching them together with swipes of pastel sticks. It's not a lot of color- whatever I can fit into a mint tin and carry in a pocket is sufficient in the field. Limits like that keep me from getting carried away.
My favored paper is Rives BFK; it's tough, lightly toothed with a suede-like surface. Pastel works well on it, although it doesn't allow as many layers as the sanded papers do. My next-favorite paper is Fabriano Ingres, more fragile but utterly delicious.
My pencil? Kohinoor's Triograph 6B. It's a lusty, full-bodied deep dark graphite. I'm a fan.