Visit my Patreon Page for more painting instruction and Paint Along Videos!

Sunday, November 10, 2019

How to Store a Large Pastel Painting


How to Store a Large Pastel Painting

'Lavender Surprise'          16x20           pastel        ©Karen Margulis
click here to purchase $195

Bigger is better sometimes.  I love painting large but I don't do it very often. Mostly because of expense. I want to paint something everyday so smaller paper size and less pastel use fits my budget.  But every once in awhile I pull out a full sheet of paper and paint big. It is energizing and exciting.

But that leads to the other reason why I don't paint large.....How to store the finished large pastel paintings? The small paintings are easy. I just stack them in boxes with glassine paper in between each painting. But I don't have boxes big enough for anything larger than 16x20.

I have a system that is working for me....but I am now out of shelf space as you can see on the photo! When I finish a large painting I leave it attached to the foam core support and cover the painting with glassine paper.  I then stack the paintings on a shelf unit in my studio. If I were more organized and neater I could stack a lot of big paintings this way.

My shelf for larger finished paintings

Large paintings covered in glassine
Before I got the shelf unit I would stack the foam core/paintings against the wall in a corner of my studio. I sat them in the bottom of an empty box to help them stay in place.  The big shelf is a nice luxury. I am lucky to have a lot of space.


 How do you store large pastel paintings?  My method works well for me but I am aways looking for great ideas!

About today's painting:
This is 16x20 on Uart paper with a turpenoid wash underpainting.

4 comments:

Kevin Quattlebaum said...

I put them in Krystal Seal brand bags, you can order them from Blick or Jerry's.
They come in sizes up to 23"x31" and they are re-sealable and of course re-usable.
I then store them flat under the bed in the boxes that Blick ships my pastel paper in.

ChrisD said...

I have an idea, if it is of interest. I have placed a number of large pastels, interleaved with protective paper, together in a pile on the floor. I have then placed a large piece of cardboard at the bottom of the pile and one on the top, to make a sandwich. The pile is then held together at the top and bottom edges with two large bulldog clips.
The clips that I use have a hole in each of the two levers that you squeeze together to open and close the clip. I can then hang the whole pile up vertically...in my case the top bulldog clip's hole is hung over a nail that is tapped into the side of an old wardrobe in my workroom. A couple of really strong bulldog clips can hold the weight of quite a few sheets...I have fifteen in mine at the moment.

Arizona Joan said...

I like that you leave your paintings on the foamcore and with glassine on top before stacking but how do you keep track of what paintings are in your inventory? I would love to have a large flat file but I just don't have room for it so I pretty much do what you do but then I have to pull everything out to find what I want. Thanks so much; I love your videos.

Unknown said...

I just saw an ingenious idea for drying paintings and think it coukd be adapted to storing large pastel or even frames. Stand a baby crib upright on its short side. Lay cardboard or foam core across the slats and voila! You have many narrow shelves of storage.