Details:
This is a pastel on a 12" x 19" sanded paper.
Painting # Stillife 2010-40
Story:
This was my first attempt of pastels on sanded paper so it became an experiment for me. My favorite medium is oil then watercolors and acrylics. Some where amongst those mentioned are pastels? I have not used my pastels for several months. Now I know why.
Pastel surfaces or paper is ideally placed on a vertical easel if not slightly leaning forward so the excess dust or residue can drop into a tray of a sort. Then you should have a large table to hold all of your pastels and the bits and pieces and there are many which should be readily accessible. And of course there is the ventilation problem; it is not advisable to breath in the dust for obvious reasons. Now we get to the rubber gloves one should wear to avoid certain pastels to enter through your pours. Well enough said on safety.
In this experiment I used a 12" x 19" fine grit sanded paper which is ideal for pastels. First I took my partial photograph and taped it directly in front of me so I could see it and the surface I was working on at the same time. I picked up a neutral colored pastel pencil from my 48 color selection of "Conte" pastels and blocked out the shapes of my composition. Then I put them away. The rest was academic. After I applied all of the pastels in a manner such as a child would apply his crayons to a coloring book I used a medium size water color brush to smooth and blend the colors to the surface. Occasionally I would tap the backside of the surface to remove the excess dust. After I felt satisfied with the shapes I began the background application. Now here is the experiment. I should note the manufacturer says this paper is satisfactory for using oils and acrylics. I thinned out some bleached linseed oil with paint thinner and carefully applied it over the background color leaving a more uniform color. How stable that application is remains to be seen.
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