Good info Jason. Just in case anyone uses it who can’t get hold of the fixative, when the sennelier gets wet, do not touch it and leave it to dry and it will be fine. If a noticeable blob of fluid gets on it, soak the blob by holding tissue or a thirsty brush over the blob but without touching the pastel card and leave it to dry. The paper that holds the most layers in general is Fisher 400 and, to some extent, Uart. Both of those can have wet media on them. Both are great for colour pencils too allowing light over dark.
I've tried pastelmat and others but sennelier is still my first choice. I had some of the white spots in the past but soon learned that because you can add so many layers you don't need to blend, eventually the layering blends it all until you have a smooth photographic like surface and much more depth. I recommend adding numerous under-layers and gradually building up from there. It also allows me to be very loose at first and I have no worries about making mistakes. Can add around 50 layers if i want. (I mainly do photo-realistic portraits so need the depth)
Philip Norris Thanks so much for defending Sennelier pastel card. I love it too. It’s very lush, strong and velvety. I don’t plan to spray water on my pastel paper anytime soon.
I just bought uart, sennelier and pastelmat paper. My plan is to try them all and see what works best for my style. I actually like the texture and ability of Sennelier. Uart is excellent too. The Pastelmat hasn’t arrived yet. Patience is hard! We have no art store in my town so everything has to ordered in, waited for and then tried out. It’s a lengthy and expensive process but one I am willing to endure, as I love pastel painting so much!
Thank you for posting this video! It is is immensely helpful. While I too love this pastel card, I’ve had the same issues with liquid droplets removing a spot of the sanded surface. Needless to say I’ll be getting some Jackson’s fixative pronto. Id like to share a tip that has helped me to salvage more than one ruined pastel painting due to droplet of liquid: apply a small amount of liquitex clear gesso with a very small round artist brush to the spot and allow to dry fully (an hour or two to be safe) before applying pastel over the area. Even more effective would be to add a little pumice or sanded texture (you can scrape some from a scrap piece of pastel card) and mix into the gesso. Lastly, should you get a tiny droplet of liquid on the pastel painting: try to ‘ever do lightly’ blot the liquid while applying no pressure. This sometimes works to keep the surface in tact if it is then allowed to fully dry before reapplying pastel. 😊
Very useful Info. I did know about that problem since I saw one other of your videos a while ago. This is a solution, but an expensive and not that healthy one. So I just prefere to stick w/ clairefontain's. But it is very useful to know. Thank you for sharing your experiments.
Great info here. Wow, I can't say I'd be buying Sennelier pastel card any time soon! Looks like they use a glue that isn't water resistant. That's kind of bad imo. Think I'll be sticking to good ol' Fisher 400 (which accepts water just fine) and pastelmat. I've sneezed on my work accidentally before, I'd be devastated if this happened to it!
