Making My New Palette

My old studio tray was 18" x 3' and the new "Pastel Crib" measures 2' x 4.'

Lots more space, and room to expand my palette to include the grays and also a nifty pencil box in the middle.

More photos soon!

Spring Inspiration

This is a bit of an April Fool's joke, as the miniature flower pastel is from the imagination.  But, here is my travel and plein air box ready to go!  Maybe today I will get out the door and paint!

Special note: if I can get my studio palette spruced up, I will post a photo.  I really need to make another one of those studio boxes, as I have the space and too many sticks.

Black Earth with Yellow, @ 4" x 4," Pastel, Casey Klahn.

Swatch Study

Swatches From My Artwork

This exercise is an analysis of the colors that occur in a few of my pastel works.  I took them with an eyedropper, in Photoshop, and made these digital swatches using a brush tool.  The goal is to have about 26-36 colors when I'm done. 

Top Tips

Top Tips for Travelling Artists is Katherine Tyrrell's series of reports on what works well for taking your studio with you and going over the horizon.  She has plenty of links in her series, and I recommend you read and bookmark her posts for that day when you will be scratching your head over what to pack.




Because I have written for many years about my take on pastels, some of my own hints are linked.  Thank you for that, Katherine.  Much has been made about my choice to paint on sight with only 6 Unisons.  I got that idea from a San Francisco artist, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten and whose URL I can't find anymore.  All that to say I didn't invent the idea.

Two layers in a cigar box.  Insert is a Fome Core DIY box lifted with a ribbon.  Six values of any hue is the organizational principle in this kit.

Maybe out of guilt over the attention I get for this, I have been trying harder to get outside and use the 6 U's kit.  I'm glad to report that some paintings have been started, and yet I have to admit I am not much of an outdoorist.  I did get a really nice painting started at the beach with charcoal and the 6 Us, and then I used my mid-sized box of pastels, pictured above, which I re-fitted right before my trip with a better selection of sticks.  It worked great, and yet when I went to the studio to do the "resolve" of the painting, I struggled and struggled.  So much the better.  Learning happens.


Happily, I have two great painting ideas from my summer's efforts, and they started as the 6 Us in the field.  That is what makes the whole thing worth while, isn't it?


Here are "The Six."  I added my one extra stick, the Grey-18, to extend my value range to the lighter side.  

Making a Mark
Top Tips - Pastels

My Palette

I have been asked about the palette that I use: the nuances and secrets that are just mine.

Ever shoot a shotgun?  That describes the pattern of buy, use, buy some more and then have too many doubles and go out and buy some more.  It is a scattered approach.  I have shopped for pastels at specialty art retailers, from catalogs, off of eBay and from unusual places, such as stationary stores.  You would do well to look at your needs first, and then collect in a more goal oriented manner.


Here are some practices that pastelists follow in collecting their palette of sticks.


Collect by brand.


If you fall in love, or even like, with a particular brand, then you may acquire their color chart and begin collecting several sticks within the brand.  This is a safe choice, because the manufacturers consider the whole range of colors and values that are possible and profitable for them to make.  Dakota Pastels sells hand made color charts, which is a great investment when you are interested in a given brand and want to have a lot of them without too many duplicates, or want to be able to replace sticks within the line, and need to identify a color that has lost its label.



Collect by color wheel.


Kitty Wallis once had me make a color wheel with my sticks, and then it was easier to identify the holes in my collection.  Do this to find out what you need to have a full range of hues.  What you need to do is arrange each hue also by value in order to cover the scale of darks to lights.


Collect by trial and error.


See the above comment on shotguns.  One guaranteed way to find yourself with doubles and to get lost organizationally is to buy sets that manufacturers label as "Landscape" or "Southwest Landscape" or "Portrait" sets.  Buying any two of these sets almost guarantees you'll double up in some colors.


Collect by filling in the gaps.


As with the color wheel method, one can systematically buy either open stock, or well identified sets that cover a range within one hue.  A good example is the Diane Townsend sets of blues.  Another way to buy to fill-in your needs is to get sets of very darks, or tinted grays.  You are less likely to double-up within a brand, but you will have more of one color from different sets.  That is a good thing, since each brand behaves in unique ways - one more abrasive than another, one softer than the other, etc.


Buy the whole set.


This is the rich man's method of collecting pastels, because complete sets can run an artist around $1,500-$2,000.  


It is a yummy and rewarding way to establish a big collection, though.  Not to mention that the boxes may help with storage and organization.  I like to put all of my pastels in one big studio tray, which I made myself, so that my palette is organized my way, rather than the manufacturer's way.  Figuring out what makes a manufacturer organize their pastels in a particular way requires degrees in chemistry and engineering.  Don't even try if that's not you.


Collect by market suggestion.


No explanation required.  We are all subject to the forces of the marketplace.  Your best defense is to try pastels a few at a time before you buy deep in a brand.


Open Stock.


This is the method of choice for the well organized professional, who knows what he wants to fulfill his set, or who needs to replace sticks or improve his palette.


Sets.


As mentioned above, I prefer no-nonsense sets organized around a hue or around a value set.  Blues, greens, grays, darks and such.  Dine Townsend does a fine job of this.


Make your own.


See my posts on making your own sticks.


Next post:  My secret palette.

Big Palette for Plein Air

Newly Minted Large Plein Air Palette, with Medium Boxes Shown at Top.

Over the Fourth of July holiday, the family and I enjoyed our traditional weekend at the lake cabin. Complete with fireworks and a fun boat parade, this vacation offered me a much needed chance to sleep like the house cat. I couldn't get enough!

Because of a mix-up, the pre-packed plein air kit that I had staged by the door of the studio arrived at the lake with no paper! Try that for an obstacle, some time. Safely there were my French easel, my canvas bag with accessories, and my newly supplied big palette box for its maiden voyage.

You may recall that my Plein Air Project had featured my Six Unisons "Go Kit", and my medium sized palettes, but the big box hasn't been shown yet. So, here is the reveal.

Many years ago I had purchased a box of 100 Senneliers at a clearance price from Jerry's Artarama, and like all of my original boxes they become something to reuse. I keep a stock of small wooden boxes, especially cigar boxes, ready for my next idea or need. The great thing about this Sennie box is that it is made-to-order and divided just right. Without foam inserts, I figure it must be good for about 200 sticks. Then, I add foam over the top to make a tight clam shell.

Next time: Lake Images, and How to Cope Without Paper. Also, at The Colorist, I will be writing about my conversation at the lake with our cousin, the HP color printer soft ware engineer. He took me to school about the computer and printer world of color theory.

Purple Pastel Secrets

Diane Townsend 12 Purples&Violets; Unison Open Stock and the Uber Chart for Colors.

The new book, Multi-Brand Color Chart, from the publisher Huechroval, has certainly been a fun and fascinating tool for me to use in my search for more purples. My last post described my need for the blue side of purple, and concluded with my purchase of a set of Diane Townsends.

There is a secret reason
for my choices.

What about open stock, or individual sticks purchased separately? The search for these, using Marie Meyer's new book, was a delight and I was able to establish which purple pastels I wanted. There is a secret reason for my choices. More on that later.

The demo of the book was a great success. I didn't need to labor long in my search, and the answers were quick and efficient. It helps to have a particular brand in mind if you want to fast-track your solution, as I was able to do by selecting Diane Townsends for the set, and Unisons for Open Stock.

My local art store is currently selling Unisons in OS at a discount, and so I went with my shopping list, and the color chart under my arm, and efficiently found my purples.

In the future, I may wish to select from another brand using the Huechroval charts. But then, I think the choice will rely on my knowledge of the feel and texture of the brand's sticks. Do I want a block-in pastel that tends to be harder? Perhaps I'll choose Windsor & Newton.

...found my purples.

About that secret reason for my hue choices. I had such a blanket need for the blue-purples that I was essentially starting from scratch. That drove me to start with the highest intensity sticks of my particular choices, and if you look for those in the MBCC book, you find a swatch with a nomenclature and a black frame, but no color illustrated - blank space! The reason is that these spaces represent a color populated by pigments, or pastels, but unavailable via the CMYK color space. Now, you know I had to buy those!

File this under "trivia". The color purple has its own domain name.

Kill the Precious Thing

Trees and Cloud
7" x 5"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Organize your palette.

1. I choose to organize my palette with my pastel sticks peeled and all in a large tray. The tray has ten sections, with violet, red/blue, green/blue, green, intense green, yellow, yellow/brown, red/brown, orange and red. Each section is then organized from dark to light values. I started with mid values in the center and worked outward.

2. Your overstock may need drawers or boxes of their own. I made some wooden boxes for my extra sticks and labeled them by their color.

3. As mentioned in tip #1, organize your color palette by intensity. I have a separate tray for intense ultramarines, and a dedicated section in my big tray for intense, or high key, greens.

4. Some choose to keep their precious brand in the original boxes. This can be a mistake, in my opinion. Think about whether this gimps up your ability to freely move from one color, or brand, to the next when making color choices. The advanced artist learns to kill the precious thing. It is an impediment to keeping momentum in a painting, and in reaching the overall purpose of a work.


5. I keep an eye on my tinted grays versus pure grays. The pure grays are in a box separate from my big palette.

Pastels Go In

Unison "Go-Kit"
Six or Seven Pastels for Ultra-Light Field Trips

What I am about to reveal will change your plein-air life forever. I can't claim it for my own original idea, but I do embrace it as the lightest possible kit for making pastel drawings in the field. At this point, unfortunately, I have lost the link where I learned this and sadly can't give her the credit by name.

The mini, mini absolute least number of pastels to take on a drawing hike are the following six Unison pastels:

Y-15, RE-9, Green-29, Y-10, BG-11 and A-30.

These colors are designed to offer the bare minimum choice of hue, value and intensity for drawing the landscape, and "mixing" colors by blending and open-layering is required.

My little cigar box with this kit is pictured above. If I have room in my box, I add Grey-18. Also, since my little cigar box has the space, I add an eraser, a few pencils and some hard pastel grays. Tissue paper makes the cushion.

Medium Pastel Kit Organized by Value

Now consider your medium-sized plein air palette. Illustrated is my two layer cigar box. The second tray is one I made out of Fome Core and glue, and is lifted out with a broad ribbon.

This is what I wrote in a previous post about my medium sized kit:

Since I am not in my big studio during my remodel, I am working in the house with my plein air kit. I make my kits from shallow cigar boxes. This one is a PADRON (Nicaraguan, Hand Made) cigar box: 6.5" x 11.25" x 1.75". The shallow depth allows for security of the sticks, and I find that wood's gentle touch is the kindest to my pastels. I notice that few cigar shops actually sell their empty cigar boxes, but those kind ones that do, get my return business. Cardboard is also gentle; plastic transfers too much shock, IMO. For extended trips (air travel), I add a sheet of thin foam bought at an upholstery shop, or scrounged from other places.
Further, I have constructed a tray out of foam core, with foam core dividers glued in place with Elmer's (children's) glue. A ribbon allows me to get the top tray out. When I do go (rarely) out the door, I put a couple of extra long rubber bands around the box.

When I went to Italy, I knew to add some yellows for facades, umbers just because and tile reds for roofs. You may wish to pick some colors that remind you of your painting locale. Mostly, I follow the artist's idiom that says, "If you get the values right, it doesn't matter what the hues are". You'll see in the photo above that I have six values represented, with an assortment of colors chosen almost by random. I try to stay away from too dark, and too light of vales, since this works best for "naturalist" works. Try to select tinted grays when you do choose gray.

If you have a burning desire to make your color statement, then you may finish your work in the studio where all of your colors are at hand.

If you absolutely must finish your work on-sight, then you'll need a big tray of pastels at hand. We'll cover the big tray next time, and then we'll go on to the easels that I choose for outdoor use.

Five for Friday

Contaminate!

Poly Vinyl Acetate Sizing

Basic pastel tips:

1. Contaminate the tip of a pastel stick with another color from your work and begin your marks with this. Any continuity of color throughout the picture plane is useful. Michael Chelsey Johnson recently alluded to color continuity when he posted about the "mother color" methods.
   
2. Use PVA to cover areas with what is essentially a liquid "patch". It may save a work from the dustbin!
3. I like to keep my harder, square pastels separate from my medium soft and soft pastels. I use the two and three drawer boxes offered at various retailers, such as the ones from from Dakota Pastels. They are noted as STORAGE ONE, TWO and THREE, respectively. (I tried to give this link to Daniel Smith, but their links always seem to break!) The main reasons for me trying to give it to them is that they are local to me, and I think that I have bought two of these boxes from DS. They tend to be the higher quality ones, and I have seen poor knock -offs of the same boxes elsewhere. I would trust DS or Dakota for these.
   
4. While we're on the subject of organizing our palette, I also like to keep my grays in a different box. Much more about grays next Friday, when I can spiff up some photos and illustrations to go with.
5. My method of handling dust that drops directly off the paper is to tilt my upright drawing board a little forward on the easel, and to place a piece of mat board under my drawing board. Further, I score the mat board and fold it slightly so as to make a trough out of it. I also tape the score cut with 2" clear tape to prevent build up in the cut and to make it last. Then, when the trough is a little full, I tip the "tailings" into a mason jar and save them to make new pastel sticks with.
   

Note that I've shrunk the tips project to five tips instead of ten and named it: "Five for Fridays". In the first several installments I will endeavor to make these my own personal tricks that I feel don't get exposure in other tips and techniques web pages, and that I use consistently myself. Many of them I have picked up at workshops, or stumbled upon somehow in my studio.

My Own Home Made Pastels

Registering My Colors

Red, Yellow, Green, Ultramarine Blue, Blue-Green, Gray & Violet. I must have either skipped Orange, since I have several hand made ones that were done at a Kitty Wallis Workshop, or else I just can't find where I have them. I did make a color chart when I made them, but we had a basement flood and had to quickly put away my pastel making station, so I'm not sure where that is either!

This photo will help me decide where to go next in making my next set of sticks. I may have actually made a few more than this, but they are nubs by now and indistinguishable from my Diane Townsends and other store bought ones.

Blues

Use this post as a motivator to start exploring the craft of hand making your own pastels. Pigments differ in their qualities, and it can be a hit and miss process, I am told. With the method I use, though, I have been making consistent sticks that I prize.