November 16, 2010

Tuesdays Tip: How to get Dirty Pastels to Clean Up Their Act!



Hidden in my kitchen cabinet is this dirty rotten box of misfit pastels. I was going to throw them out the other day but then something stopped me.

A blog post.

From Lauren Taylor over at School at St. George Place Creation Station Elementary Art Blog. She found this awesome trick for cleaning chalk pastels using rice, a bag and dirty pastels. All things I have in my kitchen cabinets so I had to give it a try. This was such a cool idea that it got me off the couch at 7am on a Sunday morning! If you are wondering why I am up at 7am on Sunday here it is:)

My alarm clock and I just wanted to add a picture of my Kody.


It worked just as she promised. Like magic.

Pastels, bag and rice. Flowers optional. 

Shake it up!

Before and After


7 comments:

Janie B said...

Love this! So simple I should have thought of it myself.

Christie - Fine Lines said...

WOW!! I saw Lauren's post, too, but hadn't gotten around to trying it. I have 2 HUGE buckets of pastels at school that are just crying out for a bag and some rice. Thanks for validating!!!

Paintedpaper said...

Thanks! Now I am going to go clean those pastels! :)

Phyl said...

I saw Lauren's post too, and didn't try it yet, but I think I will tomorrow. How totally cool!!! Now if someone could come up with an easy way to clean those nasty oil pastels...

Sweet photo with your pup!

LT said...

Hooray for simple ways to make our art teacher lives easier! :) Glad you all found this useful!

Anne Farrell said...

Woah! Gonna try this!

Unknown said...

I used to clean my pastels with rice. I learned few more tricks from a video tutorial - http://www.jerrysartarama.com/art-lessons/Artists/Dick-Ensing/Dick-Ensing-Cleaning-Your-Pastels.html