The excess pastel dust (all colors mixed together) from my paintings falls into an aluminum-foil gutter attached to my easel. When I cleaned my easel this week, I poured the dust from the gutter onto a glass palette that is usually used for mixing oil paint, added water and mixed it well with a palette knife to the consistency of stiff peanut butter. Next, I sprayed a clean area of the glass with water and laid down a piece of plastic wrap (the water keeps the wrap from moving around). I scooped up the pastel-blob with the palette knife and plopped it onto the wrap. I picked up two opposing edges of the wrap and rolled the blob side-to-side forming a little log. I left it on the plastic wrap to dry.
A few days later, when it was thoroughly dry, I compared the muted gray/green color to the color of pastels I already had. Schmincke 093 H is darker and a Rembrandt color is lighter and has more yellow in it. I love my homemade color and plan to use it in my next painting.
That's a great idea! And the color your created is beautiful and obviously useful. A green habit, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear from others what color their dust-color turns out to be. Let me know if you do it.
ReplyDeleteI once made an unfortunate reddish brown color from pastel dust. I've seen others use their dust to gray down a bright color.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting this, Barbara. I never knew it was so easy!
ReplyDeleteWell, Jeannette, that's how I did it to get all that dust into one stick so I could use it. The REAL way to do it was posted by Casey Klahn in Oct 2007. Here's a link to his post http://pastelsblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/making-your-own-pastels.html
ReplyDeleteThank you, Brabara for your post. I thik that the dust-color should turn out a splendid reddish grey or greenish grey,. I'll try it surely.
ReplyDeleteIt's a short hop from doing this, to making pure tone sticks with pigment. A third French Talc, a third Whitting, and a third (or more) pigment. I get my supplies at DS.
ReplyDeleteYour grey looks nice, Barbara!
Hi Barb. I do this too with my fallen dust. I collect it into two separate containers. One for warmer greys, and the other for cooler greys. I'll put the dust into a ziplog baggie so to keep the fine particles from drifting everywhere and add water. It's always a surprise what comes out!
ReplyDeleteBrenda, I JUST found your comment almost 4 months late! Thanks for the suggestion.
ReplyDelete