beginneth to a hopelessly confused
set of dirty little lumps. I honestly
don’t know how pastel artists work
out of some of the boxes I have
seen, I take my hat off to them, I just
couldn’t do it, I have to be able to
see what colour I am picking and
have them arranged the same way
each time or I would just end up
stopped and staring off into space.
Thinking, wondering, but not drawing.
The Pastels
There are three main top shelf brands
I have come across: Art Spectrum,
Rembrandt, and Schminke (figure
6). There’s probably heaps of good
brands out there if you looked right
into it but the ones I decided to go
with in the end were the Rembrandts.
I went with them as they are in about
the middle of the hard/soft scale. They
are beautiful quality, very useable and
come in 200 colours, the only problem
with them is there is really nothing in
the entire Rembrandt colour range
that really goes into the dark end of
the colour spectrum except black
which kinds of deadens things a bit.
The way around this is to add two Art
Spectrum colours to the selection,
Flinders Blue- Violet D520 for the cool
darks and Flinders Red- Violet D517 for
the warm darks. They are absolutely
beautiful with a rich, deep intensity
unmatched by anything Rembrandt
offers. Art Spectrum pastels are every
bit as good but a bit harder than
Rembrandts but for some reason those
two A.S. ultra-darks are as wonderfully
dense and soft as Rembrandts. They
end up on everything when I get a
head of steam up on a pastel work,
especially the Flinders Blue-Violet,
my go-to for depth and shadow. I
usually end up looking like a coal
miner by the end of a session in but
it’s a small price to pay for the result.The Trays
Right at the start I knew I would have
to go to some trouble to be able to
keep my pastels organised in a way
my brain could work with so I designed
some long, shallow tray/drawersFig 7: So much easier to work with and become
familiar with all the colours if they are always in
the same place every time you look. I even put
the trays in the same place and way round on
the bench each time I use them. Also makes it
easy putting them all away again when it’s time for
the next 2B graphite extended torture session.Fig 8: A combination of pre-planning, hoarding, and
obsessional behaviour have colluded over the years
to produce thousands of spare pastels and coloured
pencils, all organised and recorded so I always
know exactly what is there at a glance. This is my
“spares” cupboard right behind my drawing chair.Fig 6 Fig 7Fig 8