Desk Organisation for doing Artwork

With many art mediums, desk organisation can be key as you may have a lot of materials you are using. This is especially the case with wet mediums as you want to have everything easily accessible.I am probably one of the most disorganised people there is but one of the great things about pastel pencils is that you don't need a lot of room. You can lay your pencils out (in a wrap or just laid out on the table), your paper and whatever you are drawing on. If you have extra art materials, you can get these out separately. I usually have a chisel end colour shaper, double ended eraser, soft eraser and putty rubber.Before I start a picture, I usually go through the pastel pencils I will need and work out what I might need to do. I use a spare piece of my favourite sand coloured ingres pastel paper to try out various colour combinations. Desk management however doesn't always include have a nicely laid out desk but also getting prepared. I make sure all my pencils are sharpened which I use a safety razor blade to do. My technique for sharpening pastel pencils can be viewed in the video below.Pastel pencils are also a clean medium... unless you use your finger to blend. Many years ago before I was introduced to the Colour Shaper, I would use my finger and other pencils to blend but nowadays I rarely have to touch my picture. If I do, then I can just clean my fingers with a cloth. Pastel comes off very easily with just an ordinary cloth.Another great thing about the pastel pencils is the ability to erase mistakes. Pastel Pencils rub out brilliantly. If you don't want to completely rub out the mistake then you can use a putty rubber by pushing it on the paper and it will lift off some of the pastel without crushing the paper. I recommend the faber-castell putty rubber as it's a good consistency, sometimes putty rubbers can be too sticky but this one is perfect for pastel pencils.But what if you make a drastic mistake? Not to worry, the hard end of a double ended eraser will completely erase the pastel. You have to be careful not to push too hard as you don't want to take some of the paper off and weaken it. The soft end of the double ended eraser will work for removing lighter colours but for dark colours like black then you'll need to use the hard end.I hope this article proves useful for all pastel pencil artists or those interested in starting pastel pencils. All of the tools mentioned above can be purchased through my pastel pencil shop. You can also learn to draw with pastel pencils by joining my membership programme.