Pan Pastels Update

I have been inundated with questions about Pan Pastels following my "Giveaway" post so I thought it appropriate to try and address some of your questions here.

First of all, yes they are available as single colours and they are now all available as singles on the website here. At the moment they are in the misc. section, so when you get there from the link, simply scroll down.

So what are Pan Pastels? They are little pots of yummy, scrummy, luscious pastels. The quote taken from the Pan Pastels leaflet reads "Each Pan Pastel is lightfast, loaded with the highest quality artist's pigments and is made using a unique manufacturing process requiring minimal binder and fillers resulting in  rich, ultra soft and low dust colours".

From my experiments so far (and don't forget they are new to me too, so I am still learning) although they are in fact a dry powder, they feel incredibly smooth and creamy. The colours are beautifully vibrant and the dust residue is way less than regular pastels. I find them a great product to achieve layers of colour and good coverage with depth of colour can be achieved very quickly. They will need sealing as do regular pastels and of course you can do this with a regular spray fixative but as I am not a fan of aerosol cans, I find that Paperartsy's Satin Glaze in the product I reach for to seal my work.

I love the fact that you can create new colours by  mixing directly on one of the palettes of colour. No need to worry about colour contamination, it will simply wipe clean!!!

There are 80 colours, each colour family has the base colour followed by an Extra Dark, a Shade and a Tint. Then of course there is a black and white in addition to these.

I have already posted a small step by step project on my blog with Pan Pastels and Dina Wakley stamps but I will try and do a further tutorial in the not too distant future for you guys. I'm just a tad busy at the mo with classes and prep for Ally Pally & Artsycrafts.In the meantime here are a few of the Ally Pally samples that I made yesterday with my Pan Pastels.

Finally, just a little heads up that we had a cancellation for Linda Elbourne's Inking Masterclass on Monday so if you would like to spend a creative and very entertaining day with Linda on Monday, give me a call in the shop on 01234 714848 to secure your place.

That's me for today, got to go and unpack the massive box of Pan Pastels that just arrived.......might have a cuppa first though!

Hope you have a great weekend, Lin