Painting My World: Why Pastelbord is Such a Great Surface

'Meadow Delight' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis
available $155

I am a huge fan of Uart paper. It is my paper of choice because it is so versatile. But there are other papers and surfaces that you should explore. I love to experiment and play in the studio and exploring other surfaces is a big part of this exploration. One of the surfaces that I enjoy is Ampersand Pastelbord. This surface is a hard board coated with a sanded surface. It comes in a few colors including a medium gray and white. The one huge benefit of Pastelbord is the ease of framing. Because it is a hard rigid surface it requires no mounting. Just pop the painting into a fame with or without spacers according to your preference.

There is another reason to try Pastelbord. It is so easy to recycle and reuse. Sure you can brush off other sanded papers but Pasteboard takes abuse! If you have painted a dud it can be successfully washed off. I prefer using the bad painting as the underpainting. I love brushing off most of the pastel and doing some type of wet underpainting on top. Pasteboard can take it.

Take today's painting. It was done on top of a much older painting. I wanted to completely redo the painting but use the hot image as the base for my new image.

The old painting on pink toned Pastelbord

I took a stiff bristle brush to my old painting and removed much of the loose pastel. Next I used some rubbing alcohol to liquify the remaining pastel. You can see below that I was left with much of the peachy pink color that was my original underpainting. Now I had to see what this new underpainting wanted to be.

The new underpainting....leftovers from the old painting

Drawing some of the main shapes

I decided to make this into a wildflower meadow at sunset. I drew in the horizon and placement of me of the flowerheads. After a few layers of pastel and a few sprays of fixative to create some texture I was finished. The Pasteboard took the new layers like a champ. I am happy with the new painting but if I wanted to I could brush it out and repeat the process. Now that is a surface that provides value for your money!