". . . a brush with nature"

Finally I may have found a new pastel surface I might actually come to love. After having a favorite sanded paper I worked exclusively on for years I was devastated to learn it was no longer available anywhere. This happened quite some time ago and since I had a “stash” of my own I simply placed my name on waitlists in anticipation of when the product did become available. Months and then years went by and that never happened. Of course, I eventually depleted my own supply and then went on a shameless mission of bartering with other pastelists for any pieces, large or small, of this museum grade paper they might be willing to part with. In the meantime I tried paper after paper . . . surface after surface . . . some with minimal success and others a dismal failure due to the way I like to work. So as you might imagine, when I was recently given three workable size samples of yet another pastel painting surface to try, I wasn’t holding out much hope . . . however, I decided to really put it to the test.

I wanted something I could do an underpainting on if I desired. I was assured that Pastel Premier Italian Clay would stand up to it, so I took my sample and applied not one watercolor wash, but three. After that, I rigorously blotted and wiped to see what happened. Hmmm . . . . so far so good.  Then I moved on to my pastels. I wanted a surface with quite a lot of “tooth” to hold multiple layers of pastel. Starting with the background I applied layer after layer working with each brand of pastels I have. Everything still seemed to be going quite well from the technical end of this experiment except that I really didn’t care for the colors at all. I decided to remove the pastel I had placed and start afresh. I rubbed the pastel off with a rag secretly doubting there would be much surface left there to work with. Still with some level of doubt I started in reworking the painting using multiple layers of pastels and pastel pencils. Now for the real test, I thought. On my “old favorite” I had been able to tap the back to release loose pastel before spraying. That NEVER worked on any of the other papers or surfaces I have tried since. With some trepidation (and holding my breath) I held the painting up and tapped. What? The loose dust released, but the work was still there! (That was huge, because last year I lost about six hours of work when I tried this with another surface. I’d been assured that sanded paper was just what I was looking for and that it could withstand everything the “old favorite” could. Apparently that was not so. Needless to say, I was not a happy artist that day. )

The final test would be spraying the work. I have used a high quality (expensive) pastel spray for a number of years and was always pleased with it when used in conjunction with my previous favorite surface. I didn’t experience the color shift so many artists speak of when spraying and I was always satisfied that my work was protected for framing and shipping purposes. However, when spraying on some other surfaces lately unusual things have happened. The strangest being the complete loss of blues and greens on a rather large piece after spraying. Yikes! I still cannot explain what happened there, however you could see completely down to the paper where the water and trees were, but everything else was fine. Perhaps it is a subject for a different blog on a different day . . . but needless to say, I brought out the pastel spray with great hesitation. If I could have sprayed this piece with my eyes closed I would have. I couldn’t bear to look, but in the end even this part of the experiment went fine.

Granted, I have only created one small pastel painting on Pastel Premier Italian Clay, but so far I am very excited about this pastel painting surface. It is 100% cotton archival quality and I believe that might be the big difference. Of course, I am going to have to work on it much more before saying unequivocally that I am “in love” with it totally and unconditionally, but as of today I am very, very impressed!

Thank you Dakota Pastels for the sample piece to try!