I have finally broke out the pastels.....I bought a nice Rembrandt set 15 whole sticks, 30 half sticks about 4 years ago. And I let them sit in the box. Then I bought a box of mixed colors of pastels at a yard sale for only $3!!! Ah.... now I can use them and get over my ingrained feeling of being wasteful if I use it....So now with the help of some youtube tutorials videos I'm exploring painting with pastels.....