Experimenting with pastels.

[Jo Castillo]

That's what I've read.
Right now most of my small paintings go in a binder with clear pages. The bigger ones lay in a pizza box but it gets moved around a lot. My understanding is that I'll need a more permanent place to store these so they can’t slide around especially considering that I tend to work in different sizes.

You can stack them with the slick paper between and put between two pieces of foam core and clip or tape to make a package where they won't slide, then just be careful when you reopen the package.

 

[16ga]

My latest art shipment came this weekend. And while it was delivered by what I can only assume and hope was the least competent driver that fedex it at least arrived safely. Unlike some things out side of his truck like the tree he hit twice and the large bush he tried to run over……..
Besides pastel paper and fixative I ordered a very cheap 24 piece set of student grade landscape pastels from blick and I better quality set of green half sticks by Rembrandt.

To my surprise the cheap set seems very close to the smi set I have. I haven't played with the half sticks yet but I did a 3x5 note card using only the blick set and worked much like the smis.
The black pastel did give me some trouble drawing and it didn't feel as smooth as my pieces of black. I'm thinking its because it inst worn down any yet but I'm not positive.
The blicks also seemed to leave a lot more lose dust but besides that they worked well for me.

 

[Desforges]

Here's my first experiment since finding the pastels. I’m really not set up for this right now so it was done on an A6 sized piece of computer paper.
I found that mounting it on corrugated cardboard doesn't work very well so the next one will be on something flatter.
View attachment 10074

Also I have no real fixative so my next experiment was spraying it with Krylon varnish to see if that would work. Results yet to be seen.

It could be interesting to move the cardboard piece around as you work on your image. The lines would be in different directions adding some depth. Just sayin…

 

[Artyczar]

Nice work 16. Sorry about the FedEx driver though.

 

[ntl]

Good work on all. Keep it up!

 

[16ga]

Thanks everyone.

I tried the set of green Rembrandts plus black.

The Rembrandts seem less dusty and seem to stick to the note card better. i’m honestly not sure which ones I like better yet.

These test pieces also seem to be getting more abstract on me and I'm not sure that I like that. I think I'm going to start working on the pastel paper and move to a larger size.

 

[Artyczar]

What kind of paper is this?

 

[16ga]

What kind of paper is this?

Other then the first 2 I've been working on 3"x5" note cards. Used the side without lines.
I got a tablet of Strathmore pastel paper. 9x12 and i'm thinking of quartering some of the sheets to 4.5"x6" but haven't started using it yet.