I have recently read several discussions among artists about using supports other than paper, so here are my experiences with the above.
'Eye to Eye'cat on Pastelmat, for the 2009 SOFA exhibition in September
Pastelmat
Made by Clairefontaine, acid free, 360 g/m2, available in various colours as single sheets or in pads.
Two sizes of sheet available: 50 x 70cms or 70 x 100cm's.
I have used both the black and the white.
I found the surface mid way between colourfix and velour, certainly much softer than either the Pastelbord or Fisher 400. It took several layers, you could get a nice sharp line and on the black it was possible to get a really white, white. I have found this difficult on some black surfaces.
I could not get as many layers as on the Arches paper I often use, but this didn't matter to me as the colour saturation was good.
Katherine Tyrrell has done a review of Pastelmat on her
Making a Mark Reviews Blog.
'Aristocrat'Cat on Pastelbord
Sold by the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London, SOFA 2008
Pastelbord
Made by Ampersand in the USA.
Ampersand Pastelbord is described as "a clay and gesso hardboard panel with a granular marble dust finish" The pastelbord is available in four colours, sand, grey, green and white.
I have not found a supplier in the UK, I have had to use mail order from America which makes it expensive.
I ordered samples of all four colours although up to now I have only worked on the sand one. The
Ampersand website shows the four colours and gives much more information on the product, including the diversity of media you can use on it.
So far I have used acrylic, coloured pencil and neocolorII.;
This is the hardest of the three surfaces and can be framed without glass.
Again it takes several layers but I found it harder to get the fine lines for my fur than on either of the softer surfaces, it is possible, just harder to do. It is again possible to get white, whites and paint highlights in acrylic if you don't mind mixed media.
The benefit to me of the Pastelbord was framing without glass.
Fisher 400
I wrote about this in my last post.
Developed by UK artist Tim Fisher it is a sanded pastel paper.
Supplied by
Tim Fisher in the UK, International customers are welcome.
I probably enjoyed working on this surface the best, it almost 'grabbed' the colour, was easy to blend and burnish yet retained sharp edges where I wanted them.
You can read an in depth review of the paper
here by super talented artist Nicole Caulfield. Nicole also uses Pastelbord for her work, her portraits are stunning, especially the one she did of my son., 'Rob'
For some reason I can't get the colour right in this photograph, it is slightly too red, I'll have another go in photoshop later.
I'm slowly but surely working on my second Amur tiger. There isn't quite so much contrast in real life but at least you can see the progress.
"Bad Fur Day"
Almost there, just a little bit more fur and then I'll look at the whole to see if anything needs lightening or darkening.
A little more work done on my tiger. I will add more whiskers later because I will need to do more work on the background once I finish the head.
I decided to work a little bit larger with this tiger so returned to pastels as I work faster with them than any of the other mediums that I use.
A couple of people asked if I'd post progress shots, so here's Poppy after todays work.
Years ago I mainly used pastel for my art with an occasional foray into graphite. Then I discovered coloured pencil, followed swiftly by acrylic and watercolour and ended up using mixed media for most of my work.
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