A viewer asks: “I’ve looked into purchasing pan pastels, but they are pretty expensive. Any tips for an affordable brand for beginners who want color-fastness? I’m looking for affordable quality. “
There aren’t many budget supplies I feel are worth it. Generic paint brushes may be the only exception I can think of. I would rather teach someone to paint with just black and white, but high quality than tons of colors and crap materials. Why? First, the crap materials aren’t lightfast so many colors will fade with time. If you’re just learning, you don’t need to worry so much about that. Even so, I still recommend high quality. Just black and white is enough to learn with.
The low quality/cheap supplies you generally see online, or even generic art supplies hobby lobby and Michaels carry just don’t perform well. I can’t teach students to blend well or layer when their materials won’t do it right. The student is likely to get frustrated and give up because they can’t make it work when in reality they’re trying to work at a disadvantage!
I recommend buying black and white and mastering that while you save up for additional colors as your budget allows! The bonus here is you will also be mastering your values which is SO valuable as an artist!
We all need to be reminded “Don’t drink the paint water” and other fun artist sayings.
Why not wear it on our clothes or coffee mugs to make sure we don’t forget? LachriMerch.com
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