Cleaning Pastels While Traveling

'Summer Color'. 5x7. Pastel

After two weeks on the road it's time to get clean. Yesterday was laundry day and today it was tome to clean my pastels. I love my little travel kit. It has been so easy to take out and quickly paint. But being jostled around in a box for two weeks can lead to very dirty pastels. In fact I didn't even realize how dirty they were until I cleaned them today.

 

Here is a before shot. Dusty and dirty! I had forgotten to bring along a rag to keep them wiped and the paper towels are never handy so they were desperate for a cleaning. I found a perfect cleaning solution. We are staying right on the Virgin River just outside of Zion National park. I noticed yesterday that the riverside was a very fine soft pink sand. Perfect for pastel cleaning.

I filled a ziplock bag with the sand. Then I transferred the dirty pastels into my box lid. I added a few pastels at a time into the bag of sand, gently shook the bag.....a little like shake and bake. The pastel are then squeaky clean. I put them back in the box looking better than new!

 

It was very hot today ...in the 100's! So I wanted to find some shade for my daily painting. For a change from the cliffs nd rocks I decided to paint the gardens in front of our hotel. Tomorrow I will get up early to paint before it gets too hot! Zion is very beautiful though and I have taken many photos!

Just a reminder.....all daily paintings are available by auction on Daily Paintworks. The link is at the top of the page. Also I post more trip photos on Facebook so be sure to friend me to see more!

 

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