Colorado Morning, 20 x 24, Rives BFK
Hard pastel applications
I spent today at my new studio with a 20 x 24 sheet of prepared Rives and a black and white photo from Colorado. This was taken near Salida on an early morning walk with very strong light and shadows. I toned the paper with burnt umber light–I wanted it to be more neutral and I really liked it. Then decided to start with hard pastels to lay in the shapes–something I didn’t do with the others. I found this to be a good way to start and have included the photo. I worked slowly from hard, to Girault, and finally to soft. Used a lot of Unisons and Schminckes, and Ludwig blue violets in the road. I had a CD player and listened to Bach and Welsh folk music! I really enjoyed being there in my own little world. I also filmed my new box so you can see the beautiful array of colors. At the top are the hard pastels and below them the Giraults. The soft are arranged the way I have my large box at home, with 7 columns for the various hues and the last for grays. Having all three kinds of pastel in one box is REALLY nice! So handy. And the pastels are so clean and beautiful.
My new pastel box!
So lovely! I love seeing your start then the finish. And thanks for sharing your pastel box. I am always interested in how people can bring organization to the chaos of multiple options in pastel sticks.
I am searching for a new storage system for my bourgeoning collection of pastels (have out grown my medium Heilman box) and am looking for a studio set up large enough to hold many sticks. Your box looks like it might work. I would be so grateful if you were willing to share your source?
Thanks
Anna–I now have two studios and two studio boxes! The one in my home studio is the large Heilmann box. The one in my new studio was built by my husband to fit the top of a chef’s cart from Container Store! At home, I also have a cabinet (built by my husband) with drawers from IKEA that houses the original boxes that my complete sets of pastel came in. When I needed to fill the new box, I went to those boxes and pulled out pastels. The large Heilmann box is expensive as it is designed to be carried around! But it does hold a lot of pastels. Even so, I have my Giraults and hard pastels separate and only the soft ones in the Heilmann. If it’s for the studio and won’t be transported, you might consider trying to put something together. The important thing is to keep it flat. I started out with plastic boxes from the Container Store and I piled the pastels in and never used the ones on the bottom. The other choice is to rent out my husband!