Less Dust, More Space and Gaining Ground

 I could hardly believe it when I came back upstairs from the basement.  I'd spent three hours cleaning up, cutting paper and gessoing more paper. I must have been  having fun!

First I scraped the oil skins off of my glass palette, then I coralled paint tubes, brushes and palette knives into various bins and baskets.

Then I realigned my music collection, coralled my (relatively small) collection of RF paint sticks, and put my brushes away.  (There are two which are going to need the hot vinegar treatment.  Sigh.)

Next I gathered my courage and mixed up some Coarse Pumice Gel and blue and red Acrylic paint to see if it was really possible to make one's own "sanded" paper for pastel painting.  The jury is out because they have to fully dry first.
However, I think it's going to work.  I now have a 9x12 sheet of almost purple sanded Strathmore watercolor paper.  For that one I used just Gel and paint.

 For the next three sheets I mixed the Golden Coarse Pumice Gel with gesso as well as acrylic paint.  I now have a sheet that is fairly blue, somewhat green and barely buff. I am SO glad I have an offset handled HUGE palette knife to spread the grit with.  If you hate the fingernail/blackboard combination, you probably wouldn't like making your own ground!  Scritch. Scratch. Which reminds me that I'll be needing more finger cot protectors soon.  :-) No need to get blisters from painting.  A stiff neck is bad enough.

When I went to Art Supplies Wholesale, I also bought two whole sheets of Wallis Sanded paper.  I cut each sheet into 4 9x12 pieces. 

 My poor oil painting of a house on a hill must be feeling forlorn and abandoned!  My eyes certainly saw it in a new lite after solely looking at dreamy, smudgy pastels for a month!

The best news is that the easel and "studio" space are ready for me whether I want to paint with oils OR pastels.

And the hyacinth and daffodil bulbs are still waiting to be buried planted.  If it is dry tomorrow, maybe it'll all happen.