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."

6" X 9" Soft pastel paintings - Landscapes

"Art is not what you see but what you make others see." By Edgar Degas

After a long break, I created two soft pastel paintings using my miscellaneous collection of

soft pastels. I worked with soft pastels for many months at a stretch in 2014 and the beginning 

of 2015. In the past few months I have been indulging in a lot of water colour artwork and 

the water colour medium is undoubtedly the most challenging one. 

With my water colour paintings I am still experimenting and exploring. However with my soft

pastels my technique is almost set. But I am open to trying out something new.  

Charcoals and soft pastels are both dry mediums and a lot in the painting happens as per your 

technique of holding the chalk and creating the strokes and blending. Over a period of time we 

all get used to a particular way of doing our artwork and that starts defining our individual style.

I complete my painting in two layers. In the first layer I usually do a little blending but in the 

second layer I normally use a lot of strokes and very little blending.

Apart from using soft pastels, I have also used Camel charcoal pencil at places to define a few

things such as rocks, crevices in mountains etc.

Road to leh

Soft pastel painting on Canson paper

Size 6" X  9"

Komic village

Soft pastel painting on Canson paper

Size 6" X  9"

My pastel palette

Which has broken pastels from different brands.

Both the above paintings have been submitted in the DPW challenge

I have a Two days soft pastel workshop coming up soon and thats

another reason for getting into a few pastel works.

My works can also be viewed on my FACEBOOK page.