In my post “Buttery Next Steps” I mentioned that oil pastels have a shelf life- Paul Rubens goes from buttery and smooth to sticky and less pleasant. My conclusion is that they are a use it or lose it material.

I’d like to amend this to, it depends on how you store them.

I store all of my art supplies in my basement studio in latching totes. They aren’t perfectly air tight, nor are they watertight, but they are close. I store my work art materials in less expensive non-latching totes. 

In both cases I use a variety of sizes. A large difference is that at work, while in use the materials often sit without a lid but in the tote. While at home, my oil pastels get the lid put on them every time I’m done using them.

The work oil pastels are mostly, but not every box, much stickier, especially with an unwrapped stick than the oil pastels at home. Even the same brands have differences. While the Paul Rubens pastels at work were sticky and kind of gooey in how they moved the home version was just as slippery and soft as the day I bought them.

The difference is drastic.

This image was made with the “work” oil pastel. The layers are thicker and stickier.

This image was made with the “home” oil pastels. I used Mungyo and Paul Rubens. The layers are thinner and smoother, though there is still texture. The texture is intentional.

I’d like to also point out the temperature differences in my home studio versus my work studio. My home studio is cooler than the outside temp in the summer and remains pretty cool all winter. Humidity is controlled by a dehumidifier in the summer. My work studio… Is warm all winter and humid in the summer though we have 2 dehumidifiers running it’s humid. The AC is controlled by others, and doesn’t always work for the basement printshop.

These are Mungyo gallery oil pastels. They are the only pastels in my air tight container that got harder over time. they were also much more firm than other brands.

The differences in the 2 locations in terms of heat/cold and humidity are pretty drastic. I think my tendency to keep my personal oil pastels in an air tight container, born largely out of organization and storage needs rather than thinking about how the materials would act or survive if in an air tight containers

Mont Marie. Soft silky smooth, even after over a year of storage. Also, available in a tin and not quite as smooth as Rubens or Lightwish.

​I chose air tight (mostly) containers because I want all my paper stored in air tight containers. Sometimes I forget to empty the dehumidifier and paper can mold but also it can retain smells. I’m not sure there is much worse than opening up a package of musty smelling paper.

If you are interested in seeing my posts a month earlier, check out my Ko-Fi account and consider buying me a coffee.

One of the things we talk about in art therapy is how the very materials we use can impact the emotional state of a client. Depending on the person’s needs you assess and offer a material.

Materials are classified as controlled or loose. Controlled materials are things like pencils, pens, and markers. Loose materials are things like watercolors or regular clay. Of course there is a whole range of materials in the middle- things like acrylic, gouache, or tempera paints. Where would we put oil and chalk pastels? Or paint markers?

These designations get even more complicated when you layer in a person’s capabilities and skill level with a material. Most days I’d say gouache and acrylic are pretty controlled for me. Most days I’d even think that watercolors are something I have a lot of control with.

But then there are days when I don’t have control.

Case in point:

A few weeks back my DayJob announced internally a bunch of changes, the one I can now talk about is the closure of our film school program and that 2 of my friends are getting laid off.

BIG DEEP BREATH

Exhale

This obviously impacted me pretty deeply, I have mentioned in a few videos that I felt like I was mixing mud and that the watercolor and media felt out of control. I painted and used too much water and the color dripped down the paper in a way I had not expected, but normally would have, and felt frustration.

When the materials don’t match our mood, it doesn’t fit our needs, and it leads to frustration and art that doesn’t feel like it quite fit. But match the material to the mood and feeling? That’s where the magic lives.

Lately my en plein air bag has gotten heavy with additional mixed media materials. I keep adding to my materials that I might want to use, despite the fact that when I get out there I use just a few. This problem is compounded by the fact that I picked up the Soola pouch. It encourages maximalism over minimal supplies.

​The decision paralysis over basically my entire studio out there with me wasn’t helpful at my goal of quickly (30 minutes-ish) capturing the feelings of a spot.

So in these videos I limited my supplies down to:

• Water soluble graphite crayons
• Water soluble charcoal pencils in fun colors
• Some sort of water soluble colored pencil
• My own walnut ink and acrylic ink
• Some Inktense
• Water brushes

I didn’t use everything, I started out with water soluble pencils and the graphite crayons and added in as I wanted color or something that matched the feelings.

​I also chose to work 9×12 inches with a taped border.

After this I switched things up and decided I REALLY need to lighten my load out- it has to now fit in my Vernon Trunk Bag for my bike. I switched everything out to my cardboard pochade box, which works REALLY well. Shockingly well. I’m going to make a whole video about building one.

The thing about working with just a few materials and focusing only on values- dark and lights means that I can not worry about mixing colors and matching them or not. When I was using the Seami kits I used a pale pink and purple color for the beach and honestly it’s perfect. I’ve got to remember that pink is a good color for the beach.

Using minimal materials also means that the images feel more low stakes, at least to me. I don’t get stressed out at the idea that I might want to sell these images (though I’ll totally sell them if any one is interested.)

Anyway, here are the videos:

https://youtu.be/uBfQl_FxJBg

https://youtu.be/9EBEfGZb–A

https://youtu.be/NuJMYqcrLF0

https://youtu.be/zKjyNFVjZTU

I think the simple and few materials really helped to loosen me up. I’m going to keep this in mind as I struggle with adding more and more to my bag.

This is a bit of an unformed series of thoughts that I’ve been having. Last year my perimenopausal symptoms hit a tipping point- I couldn’t sleep. I had a month where I got maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep per night. My brain was one giant fog and my memory was shot.

Let’s not talk about my mood. I mean, I was cranky AF.

I finally made an appointment and my primary care suggested progesterone and perhaps later other forms of HRT.

Immediately my sleep improved.

My brain fog improved.

My mental state improved.

However through all that, my motivation remained low, and my knee was still killing me.* Exercise tapered off and I learned that I do not respond well to long term low level pain.

​I recently started riding my bike again, both my regular bike and my eBike. My knee is still not perfect, and likely never will be again, but the benefits of riding definitely outweigh the twinge I feel here and there as I up my mileage.

The reason I’m posting this HERE and not on my Less is More Healthy Vlog is because I’m riding my eBike to work every day and I’m figuring out how to cut my art supplies down so I’m not totally weighed down.

The rule:

• Everything MUST fit into my Po Campo Vernon trunk bag. (No affiliation, just a big fan of their bike bags.)
• Exception: paper can go into my pannier bag.

My small pochade box fits into the Vernon bag. It’s compact. It also allows for me to fit some additional art supplies in the bag. My red or green kit fits.

I decided to work lightweight for my current set up. I’m using my cardboard pochade box, postcards, watercolors and a handful of colored pencils and inktense pencils. I tossed my Soola** bag in there too.

So far it’s working well.

The picture is of my regular bike, not my eBike. I bought it shortly before I tore my MCL last year. It fits me really well and there is nothing quite like a bike that actually fits me.

*I think I detailed it here, last summer I tore my MCL and kept tweaking it.

** The Soola bag is a maximalist bag and I don’t even have mine completely filled. It’s heavy but for now as I test it out, it’s in there.