which all slide in under my drawing
table. I worked it out so that every
pastel had its own groove to sit in
with enough room for a few broken
fragments of the same colour as well
so that I could put a new one in there
when needed and still keep the last
little bits and pieces of the existing
one in the same groove. I also
really wanted to be able to positively
identify each one easily, not only to
become as familiar as possible with
the various colours and shades but
also to make it possible to easily
keep track and be able to re-supply
the trays without any dramas. I did
this by leaving room down one side
of the trays for the name and colour
swatch of each pastel and down the
other side for the actual catalogue
number of each pastel (figure 7).
I covered the paper strips all this
information is on with pieces of clear
perspex (acrylic), screwed down to
stop the inevitable pastel dust gettingin. I have also collected quite a few
spares of each colour over the years
(figure 8), for each spare I just put
a small mark on the Perspex with a
blue chinograph pencil next to that
colour in the trays (figure 9). That
way when I am working away at the
easel and run out of a certain colour/
shade all I have to do is check the
blue marks. If there is a spare for that
colour I can tell straight away and can
go into the spares cupboard knowing
I will find the exact one (I really hate
wasting time on uncertainties that can
be avoided), put it in the right slot in
the trays, wipe one chinograph mark
off the Perspex, and keep on working
without really even disengaging
my brain from the ongoing creative
thought process. Wearing a whole
pastel down to nothing actually
happens surprisingly slowly, pastels
last longer than you’d think. Most
pastel artist’s boxes I have seen are
a bit random. Loosely sorted into
greens, blues, browns, etc. When I
ask what their system is they mostly
say, “I just grab whatever’s there”,
when I ask them how they know
which colours they’re out of they just
tell me they always just buy whatever
catches their eye in the art shop of
whatever brand and toss them in
the box with the rest. The hair on
the back of my neck’s standing up
just writing that, which very probably
says a lot more about my own mental
pre-programming than anything bad
about other artist’s methods and
habits. It just goes to show how
different various approaches and
attitude can be to not just art itself but
also mindset as far as preparation,
organisation, materials, etc.Pastel Paper
There’s only two main kinds
really. One is like a cross between
cardboard and paper towel, that is,
it’s stiff like thin cardboard but has aFig 9: This is the edge of a pastel tray
showing the catalogue number and spares
for each colour. Each blue dot represents a
brand new pastel in the spares cupboard.Fig 9Pencils Down