Artist in Lockdown

Anyone there?

I’ve decided to finally jump ship and dive straight into the pastel world. I’ve been heehawing about trying pastels for about two years now. I love the results I’ve seen other artists get, but I’ve been terrified at the price – and if I end up totally sucking at it, then I’ve just wasted a buttload of cash. But since it’s the end of the world and all, I figured it’s now or never. I guess that’s what facing your own mortality will do to you.

My desk in its current state.

I bought a 24 set of Faber Castell Pitt Pastel pencils, the Wildlife set of PanPastels, and a pack of PastelMat. Also a few matchbox sets of Conte à Paris sticks.

In all their glory.

I found this picture reference of a tiger from Pixabay and started in. But I quickly realized that pastels are a completely different animal (ha) than what I am used to.

The current state of my tiger as of noon today.

It’s hard to describe working with pastels. The only word I can think of is “fluid”. What you put down on the paper constantly changes. This is both good and bad. Bad, for when you finally get something looking the way you want it- DONT TOUCH IT ANYMORE. It’s not permanent, and can easily be messed up. Good, for when it’s looking like crap, you can easily keep changing it and working on an area until it does look the way you want.

Random pile of tools.

As much as I complain, I actually really enjoy working in pastels. It’s absolutely challenging, but you get pretty fast results. In my opinion they are worth all the money I put into getting them!