Five years ago I started using a seventy two piece Holbein set as hard pastel travel set. I have wooden boxes that hold pastels but I found they were heavy and took up a lot of room. I wanted something that was light and would fit on my 9x12 Guerrilla Painter box and could slip into my backpack. I found the set of 72 Holbein’s fit perfectly onto the box so I decided to see if I could make a travel set out of the box. I love Holbein for their shape and their ishy colors but I found the set was limited in value and saturation. I made some modifications by pulling them out then arranging them by value. Then I removed a few colors that were close in value and color and added in some other brands of pastels to extend the value and saturation range. I used Nu-Pastels, Faber Castells and Rembrandt’s to create a set that met my need for color values but also because they are hard pastels that fit into the slots of the Holbein box. Because this was made up of different brands I decided to call it my Frankenbox.

I created it originally for plein air painting but found it was a very useful for studio painting. The box turned out to be surprisingly sturdy and travelled with me to Italy several times and other workshops around the U.S. It became my go to plein air air box and I could change out the colors if I thought it would suit my needs. The only qualification was that the new colors had to fit into the slots of the box.

Recently I decided to treat myself to a new box and show you the process of making one from scratch. I purchased a box of 72 Holibeins for around 140.00, a set of 72 Faber Castell for around 30.00 and then went into my inventory of Nupastel and Rembrandts. The new box cost around $185.00 which isn’t bad if it lasts for the next 5 years. Here are the colors and brands I added in.

Nu Pastel Colors

Bottle Green
Harbor Blue
Light Naples Yellow
Light Blue
Cordovan

Faber Castel

Three sunset colors
Light blue

Rembrandt

Blue Violet

I also added a couple of short nubs of pastels but without the paper on them I am not sure what brand they are.

Two other items you will need to make your box is some glue, to fix the loose foam inserts to the inside of the box cover and a giant heavy rubber band.

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