Clarty Pastels, Clarty Fingers, no Problem!

Pastel sticks are beautiful, the hues amazing, just a wonderful medium but they do also have their disadvantages, one of them is getting grubby! Good news, there is a cheap and cheerful solution. 

 

Whether in the studio on trays or like this after a plein air session, they pick up colour from their neighbours or from your hands while in use. This box fell down while in use plein air, that is why it looks so dire! Now to Spring clean them! 

 

You just pop the grubby pastel in a bowl or box with rice or cornflour,  then give them a gentle side to side shake. On the left is the rice, actually this is risotto rice and no I'm not being pretentious, it was the only rice I had! On the right cornflour, in both bowls are about two tablespoons. 

 

 I do prefer the cornflour, although as you can see it is messier than rice, but I'm a mucky pup so the mess doesn't bother me. In the bowl is the Unison BG 18, which can be seen in the box on the right, looking much better, isn't it? The small piece in the cornflour bowl above was white and it certainly came up white again too. Any residue of the cornflour gets wiped off with a piece of kitchen roll, obviously the paper wrappings don't turn bright white again, but that is also from previous use! Don't forget to dispose of the rice/cornflour when finished. Other suggestions for cleaning pastels were the use of fine sand, it worked but I didn't like the grittiness of it. 

The box shows a good selection of my "working pastels", Sennelier, Schmincke and my favourite Unison. These three pastel brands are very similar in softness (always depends on the hue!) but I find Sennelier due to their thinness break easily, which is OK because smaller bits mean they take up less space (but can be annoying),  Schmincke can be very sensitive to jiggles when transporting and Unison I just love because of their chunky shape and robustness. As for labels, I do try to leave them on to work with because I think it stops the pastel disintegrating.

So there we are for today, now we've got our pastels all yummy and pristine, it's time to get them all clarty again!