I bought the expensive Sennelier pastels and now I'm afraid to use them
They arrived Tuesday. The box has that wooden smell and the sticks are wrapped in paper like they're something precious, and I have been walking past them for three days now.
Meanwhile I am still working with the flattened stubs from my cheap set, the ones that are basically just dust held together by hope. Which is silly. I know it's silly. You buy them to use them, that is the whole point, and I am not the kind of person who saves things for a special occasion.
But there is something in my head that says if I break the good ones open I have to make something worth them, and I don't know yet if I can.
The portrait on the easel is a study of my own hands, which is harder than I expected, and I keep thinking maybe I'll just do a few more of those first before I open the box. A few more. Sure.
Anyone else have this? Or do you all just tear the paper off immediately like normal people.
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ahh I know that box well, I've a set of Pfeil gouges that sat in the drawer for the better part of a year doing the same thing to me. here's the thing though, and I say it as a man who does it himself: the "worth them" rule is invented. you've already paid for them being good, that's done. the first mark you make in a fresh stick doesn't have to be a masterpiece, it just has to be a mark.
what I'd do is take one stick, the ugliest colour in the box, the one you like least, and just scrawl something stupid with it on a scrap. a bad dog. a scribble. break the seal on the preciousness before the preciousness breaks you. after that the rest are just pastels again.
and for what it's worth, working with the flattened stubs is its own apprenticeship, you learn to hold on tighter. the good ones'll feel like cheating for about a week and then you'll never go back. open the box 🙂
Most of the good things in my studio came to me used, cracked, half gone. A palette I found in a skip in 1994 is still the one I reach for. New and perfect is actually the unusual state, it is the one that does not last. So the box is already temporary, you are just deciding when.
Though I would say use the ugly colour second, not first. The first mark should be the colour you love, made badly. The ugly one will be there waiting regardless.
"the first mark should be the colour you love, made badly", I read that three times. That is a whole way of thinking and I have been doing it backwards, saving the good colours for the good drawing that never comes.
The palette from the skip in 1994 is the part I keep coming back to. Things that have been used a long time start to look like they belong to someone. My stubs are ugly but they are mine. The new box is still nobody's.
Ok. Tomorrow. Colour I love, made badly. I will report back, probably with something embarrassing 🙂
A bad dog. Honestly I think that might be exactly the permission I needed, thank you. The Pfeil detail is the part that got me, a year in the drawer, and they are tools with a job to do, same as mine.
I took your advice tonight and pulled out the ugliest one, a muddy olive that I cannot imagine ever wanting on a face, and drew a truly terrible pear with it on the back of a shipping envelope. It felt ridiculous and then it felt fine. That is the whole report.
So did the gouges ever come out properly, or is the first cut still the one you are avoiding?