More Water Play with Pastels

'Across the Desert'      8x10       pastel       sold

I love the versatility of pastels!  They suit my personality so well.  I am not one to be content with any one technique or paper.  I love experimenting and pastel makes it so easy!  One of the things I have been fascinated by recently is mixing pastel with water.  Last week I tried liquifying my pastel by spraying my painting with water. See my blog post HERE.

'Stormy Day'    4x4    pastel

For the spray bottle water technique I like to use Pastelbord. The rigid surface doesn't warp or buckle like paper can. I also love the pastelbord because if you aren't happy with the painting you can wash it off!  But the other day when I was playing with the spray bottle I ran out of Pastelbords. Instead I decided to try using my own homemade surface.

I had several pieces of matboard that I had coated with clear gesso. It was a nice rigid and textured surface.  It did fine with the spray of water and didn't warp. But I didn't get the same interesting effects with the puddles of water and pastels that I got on pastelbord. I think the homemade surface was too absorbent. The water soaked in and didn't allow the pigments to separate and drip.

That didn't stop me though!  I decided to take some pastels and paint on top of the wet surface. The pastels got wet and thick. It was different!  The colors were dark when wet but dried to their original colors. Both of today's paintings were done with dry pastel on a wet surface.

I am registered to take Bill Creevy's workshop at the IAPS convention and the topic is Pastels & H2O. I think I am going to love it!