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Painting Pastels on Location Page

CATTLEYA ORCHID PASTEL PAINTING 8-19-13, #995

The view is right above the support, it's easier to bring the view straight down than across like today's easels are designed to do. The left and right of the top edge of the support are the left and right of the view.
I get to mark the bottom of my view and the sides.

Me with setup
This is my setup, in this case the warm pastels are to the left and cool to the right.

Pastels on my leftPastels on my right


I'm drawing on a masonite board painted with a gesso and a medium grain calcium carbonate limestone.
I made this panel before Golden made a pre-made solution. I had to use it.

Painted on masonite Day 1 Painted on masonite Day 3


I photographed this image below before the pastel dust was blown off. They look like black specks but it's just the shadows of the chalk. My friend Tweety Jane shot day five before the end of the day. That's the image below the spotted image. The are still major changes to be made, one more day should do it.

I got the painting finished but didn't final it correctly. I used a new product consisting of casine.
That's fine, Dagas used it, but I sprayed it too wet and the colors and shapes bled and got soft edges. I had to let it dry and haven't got back to it since.

That makes 3 paintings unfinished, the Gold Cup pictura translucida to which I'm going to make a new power drill burnished background using the sillouettes cut out of milk carton cardboard to keep the goblet free of scratches. Last is 15x22 the acrylic Polli's Restaurant, #978 with last years red roof added. I'm fixing my site now, it took 18 years to make it, things changed, like parenthesis (-) to brackets [-] and a lot worse. I decided the brackets [-] are for scientific things.
I have to go through each page and make corrections. When that's finished I have to check the links Next and Previous to make sure anyone can see each page in a logical order and they match the index.htm

This is a good time to bring up my own homemade pastel stub. I finally got back to fixing the edges that got blurred because of wetting the whole painting down, too much liquid. The step pictured below is before I blew off the dust, it showed up as dark shadow spots. This stub is a Q-tip wrapped and taped in thin Saran wrap. I use it to press in the pastal chalk that didn't stick the first time. Like all those "spots" below. The paper stubs just pick up too much used pastel. They have to be sharpened to get rid of old color. The Q-tip just has to be cleaned on the wet rag or wiped on your other hand, it blends well too..

Here is the list of materials I need for a pastel painting:
-A bowl of water.
-Water spray bottle.
-Wet rag.
-Small stiff erasing brush.
-Q-tip covered with Saran wrap.
-Chamois
-Mouth fix sprayer, water or casein water.
-Magnifying glass.
-Casein fix. Casine is very strong, you just need a drop in your water.

Painted on masonite Day 4 Photo by Tweety

This is the end painting with the edges re-sharpened.
Tip: here is how I spray the pastel with water to fix it while I'm painting. Lay the painting flat, use clean water, mouth atomize a quick layer on the half closest to you, not trying to cover it 100%, 60-80% will do. Spray once, not twice. Let it dry. Turn it to spray the side that was away from you. Let it dry. If any small specks appear touch them with the padded syran Q-tip or padded, sharpened end of the bristle erasure. This is my new tool, I like it. Your finger will work also. You can always add more acrylic ground with grit.

Work on it again, spray again, dry again. Spraying paper pastels is old style, it buckles with water.
Now I'm finished and ready for the final spraying. I still like the SpectraFix, Degas Pastel Fixative, Original Milk Casein Formula but I moved it to another bottle so I could use my mouth sprayer for finer spraying. With the casein/alcohol fix I also sprayed from the side, not above. Once across the middle and two more times to the bottom. I let it dry and did the other half, three times also. Poured the fix back into the original bottle, cleaned my tools and moved on.

Painted on masonite Day 5fin

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