Pastels - Substrates, Methods, Materials and Conservation

[Sharon Knettell]

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[Jean Kelly]

I've e-mailed for their catalogue, This looks like an interesting place.

Jean

[Chris Saper]

Hi Sharon,

I have been using primarily the Wallis Archival Sanded Paper, manufactured by Kitty Wallis. You can get it at most large art supply stores, catalogues or through Kitty at 1-800-760-7870.

It is incredibly durable, and accepts underpainting washes in watercolor, acetone, mineral spirit, acrylic or thinned-down oil without buckling or filling the tooth. It's good for painters who, like me, have a pretty heavy hand.

I know of painters who literally wash off a failed pastel with a toothbrush and running water.

If I am working large (about 32" x 40" or larger, I have the Wallis paper tissue mounted to 4-ply rag, and the rag tissue mounted to 1/2" foamcore (Gator board would work well here too.) Even very large sizes are lightweight. I have had a ittle warping occasionally, but not enough to distrurb the surface shape in a frame. I would probably have something mounted on the backside next time to equalize things.

The paper comes in sheets from 9" x 12" to 24" x 36" (I just checked Dick Blick for example, and the museum grade is $18.68), and in big rolls that measure 46" x 10 yards, or by 50 yards. It's available in Museum or Professional grade. In my view, there's not enough price difference to justify not getting the museum grade paper.

The original papers have sll been white, but it's now being offered in a neutral toned option, similar to a La Carte light grey (warm grey).

[Michele Rushworth]

At the 2002 ASOPA conference I had an interesting conversation with Virgil Elliott (SOG artist and sometime contributor to this forum) about archival pastel materials.

As many of you know, he consults with the ASTM folks on the archival characteristics of many media, grounds, etc. When we spoke at ASOPA he was particularly emphatic about the fugitive qualities of certain pastel colors.

It would be worthwhile contacting him directly, I think, if anyone wanted to know more about the research he has been doing (for ASTM, I believe).

[Virgil Elliott]

At my suggestion, ASTM is now looking into pastels as regards lightfastness, and we will be writing a lighfastness standard for them. I conducted some tests of some of the more popular brands of pastels, though not complete sets, and more testing was done by my ASTM colleagues Joy Turner Luke and Mark Gottsegen. Gottsegen, Chairman of the ASTM Subcommittee on Artists' Paints and Materials D01.57 and author of The Painter's Handbook, is currently conducting tests on a wider range of pastels using state-of-the art scientific testing equipment. It may be possible to find or put together a set of reliably lightfast pastels after the tests currently under way have yielded their results, but until then, it can only be a guessing game for anyone who has not tested his or her entire set of pastels to see what holds up and what does not. Golden Artist Colors sells a lightfastness test kit, which I recommend highly for that purpose.

Once our tests have covered the field completely, I hope it will be possible to assemble a full set of lightfast colors, with which I can work with confidence. At this point, I am not ready to say that it is possible, and until I can, I will not work in pastel again. One of the things I want to accomplish with this is to give the manufacturers good reasons to improve their products. Until pastel artists demand it, the manufacturers will not change anything.

Virgil Elliott

[Michele Rushworth]

Thanks so much for that post, Virgil, and it's good to hear from you again!

[Michele Rushworth]

I suppose there is a continuum of permanence in artistic media. At the most permanent end is marble but until they find a quarry of it in a wide range of colors, it won't be the medium for me.

At the most fugitive end of the scale, it seems to me, are the elaborate mandalas made in sprinkled colored sand by monks. As soon as the last grains are dropped into place they literally blow the whole thing away. This is to remind us, once again, of the transitory nature of the human condition.

I'll settle for somewhere in between, with my oils.

[Mike McCarty]

Ophelia:

O heavenly powers, restore him!

Hamlet:

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another... To a nunnery, go.

[Virgil Elliott]

Sharon,

I wouldn't go so far as to pitch the entire set, but I'd certainly test them, and find more lightfast replacements for the colors that fade unacceptably.

After you have run your own tests and seen what fades and how quickly, it would be well to write the manufacturers of whichever pastels fared poorly and let them know how disappointed you are that they chose fade-prone pigments for those colors. That will put the pressure on them to improve their products.

Regarding the Golden Lightfastness Test Kit, I recommend using Wallis paper (white) instead of the sheets included in the kit, and making your sample swatches larger than the boxes printed on those sheets. My swatches are 1 1/4" x 2 1/2", so with one half covered by a mask and the other half exposed to the sun, I have two 1 1/4" squares side by side for easy comparison. Leave sufficient space between samples to keep one color from contaminating another. I found it necessary to draw the excess dust from each sample into a vacuum cleaner nozzle held directly above the sample, when preparing my test sheets. I used heavy black paper for the masks covering half of each sample, and separated the mask from the pastel with glassine paper cut to the same dimensions as the mask. I stuck the test sheets and masks on foam-core board with push-pins. On one of the sheets I pinned a Blue Wool Card, supplied in the kit, with half of it covered with a mask. The kit has good instructions. The hardest part is preparing the test sheets. After that, it's just a matter of placing them in a window that gets full sun, looking at them every few days to see what has faded, and writing down what we see.

The manufacturers really ought to be doing this testing themselves, and making the results available, reported truthfully, but unless pastel artists insist, it will not likely happen. The long-standing (and erroneous) belief among pastel advocates that pastels are a permanent medium is precisely what has allowed manufacturers to get away with giving us fade-prone pastels. That needs to change.

Virgil Elliott

[Sharon Knettell]

Vigill,

It was a serio-comic reply. I love my pastels too well to pitch them!

Fortunately, Unison is my brand of choice, followed by Schminke and Sennielier.

Your input is most appreciated, helpful and anticipated.

Sincerely,