NaMpPaiMo Progress

NaMoPaiMo 2020 Breyer/Resin combo draft horse.

I am back in town after an enjoyable trip to Belgium and Germany and have recovered from the jet lag and head cold that had me dragging. My NaMoPaiMo model is finally getting a little color on him. His base coat is a light golden tone done in pastels.


Pastel sticks (chalk, not oil pastels) used to "paint" my American Cream Draft Horse.

I love Pan Pastels, but when it comes to pale colors I turned to other brands. Rembrant Pastels come in a wide variety of colors. This one here is a soft, not-too-bright yellow (234,8). This was my first time using Blick Artists' Pastels (from our local Dick Blick Store). Their Autumn Brown 2 filled the niche I needed for a very light brown. In front is a sick of DuvelCarre Pastel I've been carrying around since I first learned that you could paint with pastels. It has a little bit of shimmer to it.

My current sandpaper palette.

Some artists scrape their pastel sticks to create the dust, but I don't want to use a sharp knife unless I need to--so I rub my pastel sticks on a sandpaper palette to create little piles of dust. Yes, this wears my paintbrushes out a little faster... but as long as I buy them on sale I'm okay with that. Here you can see some of the above colors and several that have been used on the palomino in the picture.

Quick Tip: I like to use natural colored sandpaper as opposed to the purple stuff (which is awesome for prepping, just not for palettes) because a neutral ground helps me see the colors of the pastels more clearly.

Quick Tip: If you have a friend who is also building her pastel collection, split the cost on twice as many colors and chop them in half. My friend Karen and I did this... thus the half-stick pictured above.

150 Grit Sandpaper for Wood works for me

Completed model

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New Pan Pastels - An Update

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Performance Bases with Kinetic Sand

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Custom Mini Model Horses

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