Buying and over buying pastels

Bartc

Well-known member
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In the past in my pastel odyssey I found that online I had bought at least 2 different brands of essentially the same dark earthy colors and had overlap with another set on some of them. So it was an expensive waste. (Nobody carries pastels in nearby stores, unfortunately.)

Having bought online since, I have also found that the screen representation is not the same as the reality, which is usually duller. In fact, sometimes some sets don't even have much difference between hues/values in real life, so it wasn't just an issue of chroma/saturation.

Having some gift certificates I have been hankering to buy some more colors. Since I'm stuck doing it online and pastels are very expensive as a medium, I tried to hold off on this for months. My theory was that, if I wrote down the color I was looking for and didn't find when painting, I might avoid some of the mistakes. Plus, I figured that I could take the online pic and print it out on regular paper, which with my printer has the effect of dulling down the representation enough to better approximate real life.

OK, so I didn't write down the "missing" colors, but I kept them in mind, and seeing this wonderful Unison sale at Jackson's and with the dull print outs in hand, I was certain that I could pick out some colors or sets that would fill out my rainbow properly. But first, of course, I had to finally clean my pastels, which had become dusty and seriously dull coated from the box. Found one of my mistakes in building my DIY box, but that isn't the point here.

Having then a totally clean set arrayed by hue, I took my print out for comparison to find the missing links. To my surprise none of the colors in the 6 sets of half Unison sticks was actually now missing from my box! That doesn't mean I have all the colors I might want nor enough of some after heavy use or breakage. But damn, I saved myself yet another mistake of buying colors I don't need right now.

Ummmmm, denial of treating myself is not such a revelatory experience, however! LOL
 
Well congratulations on not spending more money on pastels that you could probably do without. I wish I had learned this lesson before I thought that 300 different greens were necessary for plein air work. There will never be the exact right green! You're right about online color representation too ... there must be a better way to see accurate colors.
 
Well congratulations on not spending more money on pastels that you could probably do without. I wish I had learned this lesson before I thought that 300 different greens were necessary for plein air work. There will never be the exact right green! You're right about online color representation too ... there must be a better way to see accurate colors.
It's hard enough in real life in different lights on different backgrounds - something rarely ever available unless your friend has some complete sets out in the field with you. But if the stores would only carry them in more than just Rembrandt (ubiquitous), at least that would be a great start. They don't seem to want to, however. Fragile, expensive, slow moving inventory is to blame.

What I have seen not often enough is some other artist posting their pic of a new set online. At least that's less exaggerated than the manufacturers or online store pictures. Then there are the honest reviews from non-blogger advanced artists on occasion. I recall one recent one that warned me off a very expensive set of lights, because the visual differences were very slight indeed.

But without a live pastel to view and/or try, you pays your money and you takes your chances, as they used to say!
 
Good on ya. I spend far too much money on supplies sometimes. But I figure I'll eventually use everything. 🤷‍♂️
 
I haven't used pastels in decades, and gave the inexpensive set I had to a local arts center during an attempted purge. A watercolor video I was watching on YouTube mentioned La Maison du Pastel, in Paris, as a suggestion for gifting. Fortunately I was seated when I curiously clicked on the site. Major sticker shock.
But I figure I'll eventually use everything. 🤷‍♂️
My wish for all artists is that we live long enough to use our supplies!
 
Yes, sticker shock! Is that the Roche brand? They're known for sticker shock from before that term was invented!
 
My wish for all artists is that we live long enough to use our supplies!
It is a disease that artists get and it is incurable. Any time an artist is on an art supply site or in an art supply store, it escalates and one has to immediately buy. You know, you remember you NEED a certain color but you are not sure which it was so you must buy several to be sure you have the proper one and oh yes, there is that one or two colors that you use so often and you just know you will soon run out so better grab a couple of those too. And so it goes . . . . .as I said, it is incurable. :D ;):giggle:
 
So many homes in the modern world have incrementally morphed into warehouses! Jerry and I have also accumulated many books that will be read between sometime and eventually. At least we have stayed clear of used book sales for the last several years. I snapped a pic of this sign outside a book seller in Hamilton, Bermuda last month that gave us a chuckle.

6E0CE4C0-8148-40B0-9C4B-FA63E573E4C4.jpeg
 
Ha. I'm in Lisbon just now and whenever i am away try to find art supplies. Biggest issue is paper and Pastelmat is just rare in EU. Anyways.... No Pastelmat, so I got a cheap Rembrandt pastel pad for some sketching. I eyed the pastel sticks and boxes.... Oooohhh, pretty colours!!!!!.
But slowly i have learnt nature is muted...
I resisted the sennelier box... I have a bigger one. I resisted the Remy box... I have more and the same.
I resisted the cheap Gallery Mungyo pastels... They were nice but I had most of the range.
I finally settled on 9 Remy sticks in hues that slightly added to my travel set for green and blues and a couple lovely purple hues.
Much cheaper.... But.... Look more pretty colours!!!!
So hard to resist. Hope to sketch a little while here, some lovely nature and dramatic cityscapes.
But... Maybe i will go look at those sticks again .....
 
Ha. I'm in Lisbon just now and whenever i am away try to find art supplies. Biggest issue is paper and Pastelmat is just rare in EU. Anyways.... No Pastelmat, so I got a cheap Rembrandt pastel pad for some sketching. I eyed the pastel sticks and boxes.... Oooohhh, pretty colours!!!!!.
But slowly i have learnt nature is muted...
I resisted the sennelier box... I have a bigger one. I resisted the Remy box... I have more and the same.
I resisted the cheap Gallery Mungyo pastels... They were nice but I had most of the range.
I finally settled on 9 Remy sticks in hues that slightly added to my travel set for green and blues and a couple lovely purple hues.
Much cheaper.... But.... Look more pretty colours!!!!
So hard to resist. Hope to sketch a little while here, some lovely nature and dramatic cityscapes.
But... Maybe i will go look at those sticks again .....
You can LOOK but you can't TOUCH! LOL
Murray, I'm flabbergasted that you can't get PastelMat in the EU. It's made there in France, I thought, and part of the expense of it here in the US is due to that. Look again.
 
You can LOOK but you can't TOUCH! LOL
Murray, I'm flabbergasted that you can't get PastelMat in the EU. It's made there in France, I thought, and part of the expense of it here in the US is due to that. Look again.
It's around online. But the ordering, delivery fee and depending where i am in EU i can get hit with customs. So it can be hideously expensive online. I managed to buy all the stock in Zagreb, two pads. Only the small pads were in Rome of all places!!! and Sweden..... ha, good luck, it's only online. Crazy but true. Maybe a plane ticket to France to buy a pad or two???
 
It's around online. But the ordering, delivery fee and depending where i am in EU i can get hit with customs. So it can be hideously expensive online. I managed to buy all the stock in Zagreb, two pads. Only the small pads were in Rome of all places!!! and Sweden..... ha, good luck, it's only online. Crazy but true. Maybe a plane ticket to France to buy a pad or two???
Let me tell you, it's not a common item that I see on art store shelves here in the US either! Canson Mi Teintes is and has always been everywhere. And other "pastel" pads abound. But this level of quality paper for pastel specifically seems much harder to find. I suspect it's because it's expensive AND the stores don't seem to like the pastel market: too fragile, too much inventory to carry, too few buyers. So while there exist niches for many media and avocations and interests, the suppliers for niches don't have a big footprint. And look at the obvious: how many art stores are there compared to say shoe stores or cell phone stores or other consumer stuff? We're starting at a low point for retail interest at our best, I'm afraid.
 
Let me tell you, it's not a common item that I see on art store shelves here in the US either! Canson Mi Teintes is and has always been everywhere. And other "pastel" pads abound. But this level of quality paper for pastel specifically seems much harder to find. I suspect it's because it's expensive AND the stores don't seem to like the pastel market: too fragile, too much inventory to carry, too few buyers. So while there exist niches for many media and avocations and interests, the suppliers for niches don't have a big footprint. And look at the obvious: how many art stores are there compared to say shoe stores or cell phone stores or other consumer stuff? We're starting at a low point for retail interest at our best, I'm afraid.
True. I can get Canson Mt. And scored a Mt touche. But that is saved for when all else is used up. And UART... Ha, good luck!!!
I can get C-mt in an artshop in Split by sheets, and can get by with it but it's not ok for wet or certain paintings. It was easier with my 6 tubes of oils ... But I got nagged when using terps. I'm going for the "persistent bastard" award, not giving up yet 😁
 
And here we are again at holiday gifting season. My wife is asking me what I want. I know I truly do not need more art supplies at this time. What I probably need this time is more inspiration. She can't buy that at a local mall for me and so she finds that frustrating. I would much rather be gifted at different times. Consumerism doesn't work that way. So how about a get together week in a stimulating warm climate with artist friends, good food and drink instead?
 
ok but like how are they offering pastels? In my experience they are sold in either packs, where they are usually far too small and have some colours that just are not very useful, or offer singular pastels to buy at outrageous prices, even if they are fatter and last longer, since you are colour picking sounds like the second? But i was there and i still have most of the pastels i overbought with me after all those years... i no longer make my webcomic completely physically, now i mostly use pastels for finishing acrylic stuff which on its own isnt quite vibrant enough, but that doesn't make me use them very fast. I should use them more but i'm always more of a drawer than a painter (wish there was a better word for it in englishc, idk sketcher)
 
but i'm always more of a drawer than a painter (wish there was a better word for it in englishc, idk sketcher)
I understand about "drawer" 🙂 That's the thing you put your clothes in, right? Maybe hyphens can help? "Draw-er" may look strange, but it keeps people from thinking that you have a weird self image! "I'm a drawer! I sit in the bureau all day!"

"Ain't English wonderful?"
"Yes, I wonder all the time about how we can communicate!"
 
I understand about "drawer" 🙂 That's the thing you put your clothes in, right? Maybe hyphens can help? "Draw-er" may look strange, but it keeps people from thinking that you have a weird self image! "I'm a drawer! I sit in the bureau all day!"

"Ain't English wonderful?"
"Yes, I wonder all the time about how we can communicate!"
A bureau- crat?
 
In the past in my pastel odyssey I found that online I had bought at least 2 different brands of essentially the same dark earthy colors and had overlap with another set on some of them. So it was an expensive waste. (Nobody carries pastels in nearby stores, unfortunately.)

Having bought online since, I have also found that the screen representation is not the same as the reality, which is usually duller. In fact, sometimes some sets don't even have much difference between hues/values in real life, so it wasn't just an issue of chroma/saturation.

Having some gift certificates I have been hankering to buy some more colors. Since I'm stuck doing it online and pastels are very expensive as a medium, I tried to hold off on this for months. My theory was that, if I wrote down the color I was looking for and didn't find when painting, I might avoid some of the mistakes. Plus, I figured that I could take the online pic and print it out on regular paper, which with my printer has the effect of dulling down the representation enough to better approximate real life.

OK, so I didn't write down the "missing" colors, but I kept them in mind, and seeing this wonderful Unison sale at Jackson's and with the dull print outs in hand, I was certain that I could pick out some colors or sets that would fill out my rainbow properly. But first, of course, I had to finally clean my pastels, which had become dusty and seriously dull coated from the box. Found one of my mistakes in building my DIY box, but that isn't the point here.

Having then a totally clean set arrayed by hue, I took my print out for comparison to find the missing links. To my surprise none of the colors in the 6 sets of half Unison sticks was actually now missing from my box! That doesn't mean I have all the colors I might want nor enough of some after heavy use or breakage. But damn, I saved myself yet another mistake of buying colors I don't need right now.

Ummmmm, denial of treating myself is not such a revelatory experience, however! LOL
Hi Bart, late to this and I have not followed the full thread. I'm kinda in the same boat... BUT. I bought a plastics "screw" box from a hardware place, actually two of em. And the cleaned and sorted,vkeeping my Remmys and Denny separate. I still keep the foam lined boxes for out and about.
I stacked my Remmys end up, standing to easily see them.
And while I found a number of matches in colour etc, they could be HARD OR SOFT.
This creates a problem for me as I often work hard to soft. I'm still working out the hard undertone sequence before the final soft highlight, mehhhh. So while I may have the same tone/value, I have think hard or soft.
Last week in Zagreb, I stood in front of a whole cabinet of 550 Sennelier stick colours.. .ohhhhhh!!!!
I managed to control myself, kinda. But there are colours I hammer due to certain scenes, pale blue, creams and white......
And I still find that the ONLY certain olive green sift stick I use a lot of is from a student set!!!
 
I'm lucky enough to live in a larger city that has a major art school and a number of college/university art programs. Even so, the best art supply store in town was bought out by Michaels and mothballed. Michaels doesn't offer much in the way of fine art materials. The is, however, a Utrecht and a Dick Blick's. Whenever I visit, I tend to pick up a couple of pastels that I know I am running low on (I write down the number and the brand... usually Rembrandt, Sennelier, or Nu Pastel). I will then pick up several other colors that catch my eye and add these to my collection. I keep all the pastels in plastic containers with individual drawers (By the way... "Drawers" as those who draw as opposed to paint? What about "Draftsman"?). Each drawer is dedicated to a color family: Reds & Oranges, Blues & Greens, Flesh Tones, etc... There are colors I have which I may not use for a while... but then I frequently begin paintings by looking at colors I haven't used and intentionally choosing these.
 
I'm lucky enough to live in a larger city that has a major art school and a number of college/university art programs. Even so, the best art supply store in town was bought out by Michaels and mothballed. Michaels doesn't offer much in the way of fine art materials. The is, however, a Utrecht and a Dick Blick's. Whenever I visit, I tend to pick up a couple of pastels that I know I am running low on (I write down the number and the brand... usually Rembrandt, Sennelier, or Nu Pastel). I will then pick up several other colors that catch my eye and add these to my collection. I keep all the pastels in plastic containers with individual drawers (By the way... "Drawers" as those who draw as opposed to paint? What about "Draftsman"?). Each drawer is dedicated to a color family: Reds & Oranges, Blues & Greens, Flesh Tones, etc... There are colors I have which I may not use for a while... but then I frequently begin paintings by looking at colors I haven't used and intentionally choosing these.
You are SO organized (compared to blokes like me)! Wish I had those two stores around here for pastels. We have one fabulous store near me that all of us frequent, but unfortunately they decline to deal in pastels.
 
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