Organizing Pastels
I wanted to share a storage solution with all my pastel artist friends. I recently saw a photo that a pastel artist shared of her studio setup. It was amazing and organized. I wanted a solution like that! She has a much larger studio space than I currently have, but I loved her setup and it inspired me to do something with the mess I had in my smaller space.
When we were living in our Weddington NC home, I had a great studio space and used wood serving trays with narrow sides to organize all my pastels, most of which are still in storage while we build our house. They were spread out on an IKEA butcher block top island cabinet next to my easel for painting in pastels. Since it was my studio, I had no reason to have to stack them up or put them away. They sat out all the time.
The butcher block island cabinet by IKEA has been perfect in my studio space. It’s all in storage. Bummer. But I had all my pastels, pastel pencils, hard and soft pastels, all at my disposal when painting. I loved it.
Another view of my studio in our home in Weddington, NC. This room was off of the family room and was the “Sunroom.” It had all the light I could possibly want, and just enough space that I needed. I also used bamboo kitchen utensil drawer dividers for my hard pastels, and I made a rotating colored pencil, pastel pencil, and charcoal pencil storage solution using PVC plumbing attachments. I have a post on how to make it, and as soon as I find it, I will link it here. It’s easy to make and works great.
When we first moved to this apartment complex in Asheville NC, I was working out of our bedroom. I was stuck in a tiny corner with my pencils and pastel boxes spread out over my bed. It was not working for me.
In this small temporary apartment space, I have a tiny corner in the third bedroom (where all my crated paintings reside) for painting. Since living here, I have had to purchase several sets of various pastels if I ever wanted to paint while here. I had about 7 boxes of soft pastels – landscape sets, portrait sets, winter sets, dark sets, blue sets… it was a mess for me trying to find what I needed amongst the disorganization of my pastels.
Last week I took all the pastels out of their boxes and organized them by color. I was too tired to organize them by value. Maybe later. I tried using the boxes they came in to sort them, but they were taking up too much space and still spread out taking up a lot of space. When I saw the pastel setup of my artist friend, I decided I had to do something with my pastels. I started looking on Amazon for little rectangular wood boxes with shallow sides for organizing my pastels by color. If they were stackable that would be even better.
Sure enough, I found exactly what I was looking for. They have 2 inch deep sides, which is perfect, since I occasionally have 2 layers of pastels, and if I even do, when I stack them, the top box does not interfere with the pastels in the box below it.
I put thin foam (purchased from a local fabric store), in the bottom of each box, cut to fit. The foam, of course, protects the pastels from breaking. These rectangular storage boxes are perfect, and I wish I had had them years ago.
I’ve provided a link for the boxes on Amazon. And no, I do not get a commission for sharing this. I’m just sharing because the boxes are great for storage. And! When I’m done, all I have to do is stack them up in a corner until I need them again, freeing up the space on the table. They come in sets of 2 boxes. I purchased 5 sets to start – 10 boxes total.
Click the images below, and they will take you to the Amazon link for the storage boxes.
Comments (2)
Kathy Detrano
March 20, 2024 at 9:18 am
So glad my studio setup inspired you!
Susan
March 20, 2024 at 8:49 pm
It did! Your set up got me thinking about my own pastel organization. Thank you! I love your work so very much!