Cochisa
11-19-2004, 08:39 PM
Hey Y'alll!
I couldn't get over the thought of throwing out my near full length Conte a Paris pastel pencils. I purchased new pencils at the local, but they didn't have this brand, and the pigment is nice and soft, thicker lead than the others.
Not that I don't like my new Faber-Castells, I just haven't had much experience with them yet. Their color choices are a little different, and the 'paint' is firmer.
I purchased the FC's thinking it would be nice to try something a little different, since I didn't want to wait for delivery.
Some of the old Conte's had breaks all along inside, every time I sharpened them, it crumbled out in pieces.
Maybe they had been dropped too many times...
Instead of the 'Toss' I decided to heat em up a little in the oven.
I set the temp at warm. It was most likely 150*....I put one of the pencils in an old tin pie plate and stuck it in, set the timer for 5 minutes.
In five, I took the pencil out. It felt warm enough to have penetrated into the surrounding pigment, but not too hot to have heated all the way through.
I let it cool, maybe ten minutes.
When I put in through my little manual sharpener, it held it's point and didn't crumble.
I decided to do the red, after the ochre, and it worked on that too.
I even tried a little tug on the 'lead' and it remained steadfast.
I'm happy. I couldn't find that ochre or the particularly nice lip red in the other brand.
I thought of heating it further to see if I could make the pigment creamier upon application. I wonder, though, if the full heat up method would release toxics free, so I decided to think about it some more. Plus, if it didn't work, I'd have ruined my newly regenerated pastel.
Now because I believed I needed more pencils, and found a way to shop for them, I have an alternate P-Pencil choice. :clap:
Cochisa
I couldn't get over the thought of throwing out my near full length Conte a Paris pastel pencils. I purchased new pencils at the local, but they didn't have this brand, and the pigment is nice and soft, thicker lead than the others.
Not that I don't like my new Faber-Castells, I just haven't had much experience with them yet. Their color choices are a little different, and the 'paint' is firmer.
I purchased the FC's thinking it would be nice to try something a little different, since I didn't want to wait for delivery.
Some of the old Conte's had breaks all along inside, every time I sharpened them, it crumbled out in pieces.
Maybe they had been dropped too many times...
Instead of the 'Toss' I decided to heat em up a little in the oven.
I set the temp at warm. It was most likely 150*....I put one of the pencils in an old tin pie plate and stuck it in, set the timer for 5 minutes.
In five, I took the pencil out. It felt warm enough to have penetrated into the surrounding pigment, but not too hot to have heated all the way through.
I let it cool, maybe ten minutes.
When I put in through my little manual sharpener, it held it's point and didn't crumble.
I decided to do the red, after the ochre, and it worked on that too.
I even tried a little tug on the 'lead' and it remained steadfast.
I'm happy. I couldn't find that ochre or the particularly nice lip red in the other brand.
I thought of heating it further to see if I could make the pigment creamier upon application. I wonder, though, if the full heat up method would release toxics free, so I decided to think about it some more. Plus, if it didn't work, I'd have ruined my newly regenerated pastel.
Now because I believed I needed more pencils, and found a way to shop for them, I have an alternate P-Pencil choice. :clap:
Cochisa