Keeping Everything Clean

For all of the great characteristics of painting with pastels there is always one downside, and that’s the mess.

The reason for this is that pastel sticks have a crumbly consistency and loose pigment dust inevitably ends up in a lot of other places: in the air; on your hands and fingers; on your clothes; on parts of your paper you wanted to keep white, and on the floor underneath where you are working.

To keep your surroundings as clean as possible when you work, you should start by putting down a dust-sheet underneath your easel.

Then you need to deal with the pastel dust coming off your work surface.

One option is to use an easel that is tilted slightly towards you at the top, meaning loose dust tends to just drift off the surface. You can buy specific pastel easels which have this tilt.

Another option is to put something at the bottom of your drawing board to catch the dust that runs down your paper – a ‘V’ shaped gutter made of aluminium foil works well.

Also, it’s a good idea to wear old clothes when you are working; ones that you don’t mind getting a bit dirty.

These are just a few options, in the ‘Step by Step’ books you can actually see what the artist does, at little or no cost, to keep the surface clean

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