When I first started painting with chalk pastels about eight years ago, I used the cheapest pastels available at Michael’s. You know, the kind that come in all primary colors in a black plastic tray? They worked for a while, but the color selection was very limited and I wasn’t able to achieve the correct blends on my own. Then, people were asking me what brand I used when I brought in paintings for critique to the PSNC meetings and I was, frankly, too embarrassed to say.

Finally, two years ago, I acquiesced and purchased a 30 piece Rembrandt pastel set. Thanks to a 50% coupon and a gift card from my mom-in-law, it only cost me around $15.

Talk about a difference! Not only was the quality of the pigment light years better, but I feel like my paintings improved tremendously. I probably don’t own as many pastels as most of my fellow artists, but for every project I am slowly building my collection. I currently work with 53 colors of Rembrandt pastels and 3 Sennelier pastels that I got for free, 56 colors in all.

I won’t be working on these peppers for a few days (as I am enjoying the much cooler weather in Montana), but here is a shot of my progress so far and how my studio is set up.

I have a slanted desk with enough workspace to hold my reference photo and my pastel paper. My pastels are on a folding table off to my right for easy access.

The strip of red paper to the right of the drawing is how I test colors against the background before I put them on the page. Colors look very different on various backgrounds and red can be a bit of a challenge.

And, of course, there’s a towel underneath the desk so pup can hang out (read: sleep) when I’m working.

In an effort to revive my daily creating habit, I am starting this blog. I hope to post a few times a week here as this space will be a place for me to record what projects I am working on, any articles I find interesting, and hopefully some demonstrations and works in progress in the near future.