Thanks, Heather! After my first experience with sandpaper, I took your advice and purchased Pastelmat for this project. What a difference it made! The type of paper is crucial when using pastels, and I highly recommend that anyone interested take the plunge and buy some Pastelmat. Yes, it’s expensive, but the experience is like night and day.

Previously, when I worked with other paper and sandpaper, the chalk dust was flying everywhere. This time, the mess was contained to a small, easy-to-clean area. The biggest improvement was in the blending. I hadn’t been able to use any blending tools before, but they all worked beautifully this time. Even the Ohuhu pastel chalks, which I previously disliked, were usable on the Pastelmat.

I took a photo of some of my already growing supplies to share. I wanted to highlight that my little desk vacuum worked excellently to clean up the chalk this time. Additionally, the Colorbox Cats Eye blender tools I have were great for blending, though I should mention they are no longer available since the company went out of business in 2019. Fortunately, the ones I own should last a long time. They clean easily between colors and show little wear on the padded ends.

It’s important for me to emphasize that the paper was the game changer for me. My last cleanup took over an hour because the dust was everywhere, and the vacuum only blew it around more. This time, there was so little dust that the vacuum did a fantastic job, and the rest was easily wiped down with a damp cloth.

I will definitely be doing more with chalk pastels! I really enjoy the process. I hope this encourages someone out there on Skillshare to give pastels a try, especially if they have some sitting around that they haven’t used yet (like I did).

P.S. Have no clue how you write your name with the pastels. lol…