I recently ordered a new "chromatic set" of pastels made by Mount Vision, through Amazon. Imagine my shock when they arrived in the thin cardboard box by Mount Vision, with no bubble or outer wrapping! Amazon just slapped a label on the box the pastels came in, and that was it. Not even an invoice. Anyone could easily open it, and there wasn't even a single piece of tape to secure it shut. That being said, only a few of the pastels were broken and only one experienced some crumbling. Hats off to Mount Vision...to Amazon, not so much.
Anyway; after clearing out the one half crumbled pastel from the box, I wanted to test drive some of the pastels right away. On a 10" by 13" sheet of rose Fabriano Tizano paper, I quickly rendered the tulip portion in the piece below. And then it just sat for over a week on my drawing table. I kept thinking every now and again that I'd go back and put a face in there, knowing there would be a perhaps awkward overlap. Finally, I took the leap rendering the face in charcoal, and am glad I did.
