Organising my Soft Pastel Palette

Since I am back to soft pastel works, I decided to organise my palette which has got into a mess lately. Over a period of time, the broken pieces get all mixed up and the colours cannot be distinguished clearly as the pastel dust catches on the surface of each other. The first thing that 

it requires urgently is a major "CLEAN UP". 

Given below are two images of my "Soft pastel palette arrangement" that I used earlier. Top

image shows the pastels in the "DUSTY" state. Second image shows the "Cleaned up" Palette.

Soft Pastel Palette

with broken pastels from MUNGYO, GALLERY

and KOH-I-NOOR.

After clean up.

To read about HOW I CLEAN THE SOFT PASTELS , CLICK HERE I have already posted about it earlier in detail.

After cleaning up the pastels by shaking it all up ( one set of colours at a time ) in a jar of rice, I decided to rearrange my pastels in three different cardboard boxes. I separated out the blues, greens and the rest of the colours. I took this decision as I use a lots of greens and blues in my landscapes and keeping them grouped together in two small cardboard boxes helps in better judgement and

I am able to find the appropriate colour more easily.

Therefore my new "Soft pastel palette" looks like the image below. Organizing my palette this way

is definitely helping me and whenever I am not painting, I keep it covered with a soft cloth to 

avoid dust collecting over it.

New Arrangement of Soft Pastel Palette.

This arrangement is proving to be more convenient. Sometimes I use a very limited set of colours.

In that case I select the required pastels and place it in a new container and it works like a 

"Limited Palette" for me. A limited palette painting helps avoid a lot of confusion as all the 

colours required are right in the front and there are less chances of overuse of colours which otherwise causes "MUDDY" effect.

A Limited Palette.

Therefore my new arrangement of pastels in three different boxes is working out fine right now.

However after a couple of artworks I know from my experience that the pastels may not go back to their original specified location. In a state of excitement and getting too involved with the painting,

the pastels go on the table and also get jumbled up with in the boxes too. Therefore I am prepared 

to clean it up every once in a while because when they are all in a dusty state, it puts you off and

you are forced to restart the "CLEAN UP". 

Ending this post with a beautiful quote by Martin Luther King Jr

"If you can't fly, then run,

 If you can't run, then walk,

 If you can't walk, then crawl,

 But whatever you do, 

You have to keep moving forward."

Cleaning pastels using a jar of rice

The last time my pastels ( All different brands ) in the palette got coated with dust and dirt, I cleaned it up in a bowl of rice. This time I decided to use an old plastic bottle filled with rice to do the cleaning and I found it much more convenient.
I just had to put all the pastels in the bottle and shake it up vigorously. The rice scraped off all the different coloured pastel dust from each individual pastel.

Instead of discarding the rice which gets heavily coated with different colours, It can be reused by doing the following

• wash it in water 
• sieve it
• place it on an old newspaper to dry
• fill it again in the jar for next cleanup procedure

Broken pastels in old plastic bottle

for cleaning purpose

After the clean up, the pastels show their original vibrant hues.

( I have placed the pastels on tissue paper so that the pastels remain

clean for a longer duration )

When painting with pastels, they continuously touch one another on the palette and therefore get coated with different colours on its sides. This makes it difficult to judge each pastel by its right colour, hence I find it absolutely necessary to clean it up after an interval of fifteen days or so.