FIXATIVE OR NO FIXATIVE WITH PASTELS

We are here to help you with your simple to complex #Artqueries! And today, we answer possibly the most complex question - Fixative OR No Fixative for Pastel Art Work? Read a detailed answer in the blog!

Pastel lies between the boundaries of drawing and painting. Pastel painting arose approximately a century before Leonardo da Vinci’s first pastel drawings. Pastel started with representative studies and large mural outline sketches, using organic carbon-based red ochre, soot and chalk, they then use their fingers, cloth or paper to rub and mix the chalk lines to create gradational values, thus, transitioning from mere sketches to pastel paintings.

The first pastel chalks were plant-based pigments and extended to synthetic pigments expanding the palette range equal to oil paints. The Roccoco retro era established the use of fired gypsum and kaolin replacing chalk materials, rendering real chalk progressively scarce.

Today, pastels can be used as a dry or wet media and comes in a variety of formats like crayon, stick, pencil or pan. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all coloured art media, including oil paints. Pastels can be effortlessly applied, mixed and blended, making them perfect for plein air painting. The dry media allows you to work rapidly and block in your painting. They need no water, brushes, or mixing mediums, and their splendid hues make wonderful, brilliant show-stoppers.

The traditional “Dry Pastel” consist of dried pigment with just enough non-greasy binders such as gum arabic and gum tragacanth or methyl cellulose, pioneered in the twentieth century. The mineral filler gives support to the fragile soft pastel sticks. A chalk, clay or alabaster gypsum, talcum powder component is commonly present in pastel stick and pencil formulation, and white or black pigments are added to create tints and shades.

The pastel can be applied to the paper with a diluent or not. Soft pastel produces a subtle effect, with a beautiful velvety quality, the disadvantage of dry media is that it easily smudges or dislodges from smooth surfaces. This can be counteracted by using a fixative, but fixing can affect the pastel colour and texture.

Read More