Starting Pastels? Palette Suggestions

[Linda Brandon]

Well, I was hoping that it was a Ben & Jerry's type of company, with odd, bizarre ingredients and particles in the mix, as is "Mummy Brown" in oil paint. (I have also been spending too much time in the company of cadavers and taxidermed [is this a word?] animal parts.) I'm rather disappointed to learn it's just plain old caput mortum.

I'm here to say that you can make it through law school with only the most rudimentary Latin skills. But I now live in a household of Latin scholars, including one who just won a National Latin Exam Gold Medal, and they love talking over my head. All you really need to know in law school are phrases such as "pro bono", "res ipsa loquitor", or in my case especially, "mea culpa".

Carpe diem,
Linda

[Sharon Knettell]

I forgot to include Great Americans Mocha on the list, I just added it.

Choosing, what I think, is a limited pastel palette, is a real Solomon's choice. there are favorites that I left off but I was trying to make this list as affordable as possible.

In the 18th century, the height of pastel portraiture, more cross-hatching and optical mixing had to be employed as they did not have the vast array of pastels available today. You can create form and color much more easily today, by picking the right color, rather than cross-hatching or blending, if you choose to do so.

This is an interesting quote I have from "Portraits, 5000 Years, by John Walker, Abrams publisher.
"The pastel as a medium aroused the jealousy of artists who painted in oil. By it's lighter tonality, it's bright sparkling color, a pastel will often "kill" the effect of an oil painting when hung on the same wall. Since in a salon exhibition the primary object of each artist is to make his work "tell" the too exclusive success of the pastellists let the Academy in 1749 to refuse them admission. Perroneau, therefore, painted his reception piece in oil and was thus forced to work in both mediums as was Liotard.

[Mary Sparrow]

Thanks for the list, and thanks for that interesting quote!