Pastels

[Elizabeth Schott]

Matthew, I didn't read Sharon's pastels thread, but she is the pastel princess, so I always listen to her!

The Unison's are one of my favorite pastels, but for a beginner, they can be a bit more tricky for the shear fact they are wider than others.

The Rembrandt's are dull, but they are a good "cheaper" brand for two reasons;

1. They are massively distributed through Michaels etc. so easy to get.
2. In a cost effective way, they are available in both a Portrait or Landscape set.

I don't use them now, but will sometimes grab one for a massive background area when I don't want to use an expensive one.

Did you tell us what you ended up with?

Good luck, Beth

[Michele Rushworth]

You've taken the plunge and bought some pastels, but if you decide you want to learn to work in oils (without spending a lot of money) at some point in the future, here are a few suggestions:

Buy four tubes of paint: white, black, yellow ochre and Venetian red. You can paint magnificent portraits and most interior backgrounds with just those colors. Rubens did.

Put your paint in the freezer after every session, as Linda suggested. I can store the stuff for weeks that way before I ever have to scrape any of it off and put out fresh paint. (The exception is certain fast drying colors like Burnt Umber. Some of those will dry out in a couple of days somewhat even if they're in the freezer).

Really take advantage of your library and its online search catalog, as you've already started to do. I own one of Daniel Greene's videos and while it's good, I'd spend a couple of years intensively studying everything I could get for free before I'd spend the money buying a video. Check out a big fat art coffee table book from the library and spend a year (and lots of renewals) copying old master reproductions, or print a few from the web from some good museum art sites. You'll learn a ton that way, for free.

Or, as Mike suggested, become proficient in black and white before even moving to color. Traditional atelier art students are required to work only in pencil, charcoal and maybe move on to black and white paint for literally years before they are allowed to even touch color.

There is SO much to be learned without spending money on supplies.

[Matthew Severson]

Did you tell us what you ended up with?

I decided to go with a NuPastel kit of 96 assorted colors for a start. Definately lower line at less than $1 a piece, but I don't need high quality pastels yet.

[Matthew Severson]

Michele
I'm definitely going into oils, they've been my intended career since I was 5. Unfortunately I've only done three paintings in oil in my life. I've had some bad experiences with them. One of them was being banned from paint for two years when I was 8. (I had no idea red paint would stick to white carpet like that.) Anyway...

When I was very young -young compared to what I am now, I went to the library and picked up books on Da Vinci, Ingres, Rembrandt and copied their many drawings, and I was criticized for creating nothing of my own. Now I find out I was doing the right thing...

Matthew

[Mike McCarty]

Matthew,

It's really exciting getting a big new box of color. I would check out this link below and see what can be done with a very few nupastel sticks.

http://www.williamwhitaker.com/B_HTM...6_tech/red.htm

If you can't find some suitable reference material I'm sure we can oblige you here.

give no thought at all to the quantity of materials consumed; the number of T-shirts stained, carpet ruined, walls needing to be repainted

And please don't tell your mother what I said.