Another Pastel Wipe Off

Joe, an artist in the Scavenger Hunt Forum on wetcanvas, said that it drives him nuts for me to wipe of pastel work and reuse the paper.  I explained that I take photos to remember the sketches and/or paintings.  Any time you do a sketch or painting you are learning something.   I see no point in saving the actual sketches like I save sketchbooks.  Plus I have the advantage of reusing the paper.  Supplies are not cheap.

I wiped off the landscape from yesterday.  Again the paper is pretty gray from all the collective colors wiped off.  I have not washed it off but can do so this time, I will try to remember to do that.  The paper is Art Spectrum Colourfix sanded paper from Australia. https://artspectrum.com.au/products/colourfix-original/  You can add more texture as well with their primer.  Fun stuff.  I first got some in 1999 and the International Pastel Societies Convention in Albuquerque.

Here is another learning experience and another wipe off.

For Scavenger Hunt 573  http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1460240

Number 6, yellow

There was a challenge attached to do something in each primary color.  I chose my fall back items of the yellow cleaning cloth, blue glass and red apple.  We really don't have many yellow things in this house.  The broom handle, some tool handles and containers, sticky notes and that is about all the yellow you will find.

The other challenge was to tell why you like the medium you choose often.  You know why I like pastels but it bears repeating:

Pros:

1. Tactile: So nice to feel the pastels in your hand to use for lines, broad strokes, scumble and smear with a liquid.
2. Fast: No waiting for paint to dry. You can put on another layer of color .. right now.
3. Beautiful to look at: Just seeing them in a box is delightful and in a painting, well, you decide.
4. Easy to use: Pick one up and paint! You can make hard edges, wide strokes, sprinkle the dust on to your surface, etc.
5. Easy to correct: You can brush it off, paint right over it, spray with fixative and go over it again, blot with a damp towel and get back almost to the original surface with just a little staining of the surface, push it around with a rubber tipped color shaper, erase it.
6. Permanent: As long as it is not touched/smeared it will stay on the paper/board indefinitely. It is very colorfast as it is almost pure pigment. (I have a painting in the bedroom that was painted when we were in Bolivia that has no glass, broken, it looks the same as when I painted it. I'm sure it has Texas dust on it, but you wouldn't know that, dust into dust as they say. I also had some paintings damaged by fire when I had a show at a restaurant several years ago, the oils and acrylics melted, the water colors singed and the pastels were fine other than broken glass. The pigment protected the paper.)
7. Ways to use pastels: Almost unlimited. You can combine them with other media, and put them on many different surfaces.
8. Easy to store: You can put glassine paper in between and put one on top of another between foamcore or other backing. (See Hard to store below)
9. Easy clean up: Walk away and come back later and put them in the storage containers.
10. Easy to transport paintings when traveling or plein air (painting outside) painting: Just put between foamcore and tape or clip securely.
11. Fun to use!
    

Cons:

1. Framing: require glass glazing so the artwork is not disturbed by touching/rubbing.
2. Hard to view in storage: You can put many unframed paintings in layers between backing or in a drawer, but then you cannot just flip through them for easy viewing.
3. Dusty: Care in handling required to avoid breathing in the dust. Gentle brushing, keep hands washed, don't use fans over your work. You can wear a mask and use gloves to help with this.
4. Heavy to transport: For traveling or plein air, you cannot take a large number of pastel sticks with you, they weigh a lot. Paintings are heavier, too, with glass.
5. Hard to display: Paintings have to be under glass, so you can't have a bin of unframed paintings for people to look through.**
6. Usually not used for large pieces because of the glass. They can be sprayed with a fixative which changes the colors or worked with acrylic medium to make them "glass free".

**These were taken from a previous post in 2009.  https://jocastilloartblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/there-has-been-little-conversation.html    Storage is easier now, there are the plastic bags made to fit artwork and you can put them in a bin to flip through them.  I put sketches or small paintings in between pages of a magazine to carry or store and you can flip through that.  I'm sure there are new ideas for storage and framing, etc.  Pan Pastels are also less dusty to use, I have some but haven't played with them much.

Please comment here to add what you think about pastels or new ideas about how to use them.