Over the last few weeks I have been testing out a brand new Pastel spray by Clairefontaine, its about to become available worldwide very soon (in the Uk any day now). *** BEFORE you watch the video (and I will be doing MORE videos on this too) PLEASE bear in mind the points below ***
*** This is NOT the Holy Grail of pastel fixatives*** , in fact I don't think that will ever happen, because the very action of fixing pastel to a surface will always affect the pastel in some way, whether physically or chemically. So some people will disagree with my view on this fixative and that is fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
As you will see in the video this spray has many advantages, some I will go in to depth in another video (especially using it to make some darker papers like the black, MUCH darker - which is exciting). But the main advantage is that UNLIKE other sprays that basically sit on the pastel surface, this one actually melts or dissolves the pastel INTO the surface and it is REALLY frozen to it. As you will have seen on my extensive tests on other fixatives MOST don't even actually fix to the surface at all. Well this one REALLY does.
And that means we now have the option to do an underlayer and then fix it completely, it wont smudge at all and we can then work on top of that and keep the upper layers clean and sharp. As you will see in the video, some colours will change - I show that plainly, but certainly no more than the best of the other sprays and I think less. BUT it is up to the individual artist to weigh up the pros and cons if they are going to use it as a final, complete, fixative as I did on the Flamingo in the video.
Is it very important for you to have the peace of mind that your work will not smudge during shipping / storage or framing? Or is it much more important that your colours / tones don't have even a slight possibility of adjusting at all?
Personally I will certainly be using it to fix underlayers when I think that is advantageous, as far as doing it on the final layer? I will have to use it for a while to build my confidence that I know exactly what it will do to each colour. But remember I am hyper critical, others probably wont even be able to see a difference between the sealed and unsealed artwork. The Flamingo original I sprayed looks perfectly fine to me.
*** Some of my Patreon art channel members have issues with filling the tooth of the paper and then not being able to put details on top - watch this video closely and I show you how it can get you out of this predicament. This again is a game changer when that happens and you can just fix that area alone if you desire. ***