The Great Square Box Renovation Project of 2013

Sorting pastels ... this is the hard part

This is my most indulgent box of pastels. It consists of nothing but square or rectangular shaped colors, which I prefer for the straight edges. It was too full, and I couldn't find anything. Then I just had to treat myself to a nice set of Terry Ludwig pastels, which are very soft and a perfect size and shape.

On the left are some of the new pastels to add in. In the middle is part of the purple-to-red range.

In back are the grids for testing the colors. As long as I'm going to all this work I may as well make art , too. I've been obsessively making color grids since college.

This is the red-to-orange range, roughly sorted into values. You can see the little squares in the tray where they have to go. Looks like about three times as many pastel as there is space. Ugh.

Two finished grids. For some reason these really appeal to me.

And the two finished columns that correspond to them. Whew! Four to go...