Today, I’d like to share a recent experience making big changes on Pastelmat paper.
On most smooth papers, if you make a big mistake (or even a small one), you may very well have to start the drawing over. Smooth papers just don’t do well with removing color or adding fresh color to cover up a mistake. It is possible, but it’s not easy. The results are also not always satisfactory.
You might think that means you can’t fix mistakes or make big changes on any paper. The purpose of this post is to show you that’s not always true.
Making Big Changes on Pastelmat
If you do social media, watch art videos, or do tutorials or classes, you’ve probably heard artists talk about how easy it is to fix mistakes on Pastelmat.
If all you do is read this blog and my newsletter, you’ve heard me say that. You’ve probably even heard me say how forgiving Pastelmat is.
You may have doubted me on that. I can’t blame you. Before trying sanded art papers, I wouldn’t have believed anyone I heard say something like that.
It’s with that thought in mind that I am about to share a current experiment with you. Yes. It’s on Pastelmat.
My Experiment: The Back Story
Because of the nature of the Let’s Do Drama Jelly Bean class I’ve been leading for Ann Kullberg, I have a lot of versions of Spring Storm at various stages of completion. For every class, I show the students the four stages of drawing a landscape. That means, a different drawing for each stage.
Some of those drawings can be used for more than one class, slowly advancing from one stage to the next. Some of them cannot be presented more than once. So I have a lot of samples.
While preparing for the most recent class, I removed all of the samples that wouldn’t be needed during class.
One of the samples was nearly finished. It looked similar to this one. A barn, trees, a sunny landscape and a stormy sky.
My Decision to Experiment
I have been able to make smaller changes on Pastelmat in previous works. Could I make big changes, too?
Since I have so many of these barely started, half finished, or nearly finished drawings, I decided on a whim to see if I could make big changes on one of them.
Step 1
One of the easier changes on Pastelmat is removing color. I have done that in the past, but never to this extent. Just how much color could I remove?
So the first change was removing the barn and the trees on the left. Why? Just to see if I could. It wasn’t likely the drawing would be finished the way it was, and I wanted to know how far I could push changes at such a late stage in the process.
The experiment began with mounting putty (I use Gorilla brand, but any brand will do.). I used it to remove as much of the barn and trees as possible. Despite the amount of color on the paper, quite a bit of color came off. Some of the reds seemed to migrate into the surrounding sky, but not much.
I wasn’t able to get all the way back to the paper color, but I got closer with Pastelmat than I would have been able to do with any smoother paper.
I also didn’t have to worry about scuffing the paper’s surface or doing damage to it. Pastelmat is difficult to damage with mounting putty!
TIP: When removing color with mounting putty, you have to clean the mounting putty frequently. Knead it in your hand until the mounting putty absorbs the color, and it’s ready to use again.
Step 2
After removing as much of the color as I could, I layered new color over the same area. I replaced the parts of the barn and trees that overlapped the sky with sky colors. With each layer of color, I worked into the surrounding sky a little bit so that there would be smooth transitions in the colors and values.
I used hatching and crosshatching strokes in a number of different directions. I also started with the lightest pressure possible, and increased the pressure as necessary.
Then I did the same thing with the parts of the barn and trees that overlapped the trees and fields in the background. I used landscape colors to extend the sunny field all the way to the left.
For this area, I used horizontal strokes following the contours of the original hill in the background, and the fields in the middle ground.
After the area was covered, I then started adding additional hills, and the new row of trees.
A little more tinkering and adjusting here and there, and here’s the result.
Can you tell where the barn was? Do you see any red “ghosts”?
I don’t, either. Isn’t that amazing?
Step 3
I continued making changes for a few more days, just to see what I could do. But I didn’t remove color first; I just started layering fresh color over what was already on the paper. This decision was deliberate. I wanted to see how well new layers covered the old layers.
The biggest change is the sky. Not only did I change the colors, but I changed the cloud formations. I layered Ultramarine, Sky Blue and Cinnamon over all of the sky using mostly hatching and crosshatching strokes (mostly on the diagonals). I did have to increase pressure, but still wasn’t using really heavy pressure.
There are still some vague shapes and values showing through the new layers. In this case, that wasn’t a bad thing. Even though I changed the overall look of the sky, those “ghost images” added a bit of uniqueness to the final look of the sky.
I will say that it became more difficult to layer color with each new layer I applied. The tooth of the Pastelmat isn’t full, yet, but it’s getting close.
I also had to be more careful about keeping my pencils sharp.
But smoothing out the color with a paper stump was a huge help in creating smooth color glazes.
Step 4 (a few months later)
After looking at this for a few months, I decided to work on the highlights and foreground a little bit more.
To begin, I lightened the two left-most trees on the right and the row of trees on the left, and added more long grasses to the foreground.
Next, I lightened the lighter trees with stippling strokes, and light greens and yellow greens. I then glazed a darker, more subdued green over some of the darker shadows in those trees in order to lighten the trees overall.
Then I lightened the sky by glazing a light-medium gray immediately above the horizon, and the underside of a cloud band a little higher up. I blended that with my finger tip to soften the transitions.
After that, I lightened some areas of the foreground with striking strokes and directional strokes.
Finally, I stippled highlights into the two trees I’m trying to separate from the rest. I wanted to try this with Derwent Drawing pencils because these pencils are softer and I’ve also heard they’re more opaque than any of the other pencils I’ve tried.
I followed that up with Brown Ochre in the shadows. That did make more difference than anything else I’ve tried.
Am I Finished Making Changes?
Probably for the present.
But I confess that I am wondering what this scene would look like with a bit of water in the foreground. Do you think that would be possible? Hmm….
One Caveat
I don’t recommend making drastic changes like this on a drawing that’s so close to completion. There are only two reasons I’d consider it.
The first reason is that the drawing isn’t working at all and you don’t think you can ruin it further.
The second is just to find out if you can do it. That was my primary reason for this experiment. I just wanted to see what I could do with Pastelmat.
Making Big Changes on Pastelmat
The same thing is going to be very difficult (if not impossible) on non-textured papers like Stonehenge or Canson Mi-Teintes. They just don’t have enough tooth and they’re not sturdy enough.
But if you’re working on Pastelmat and you paint yourself into a corner with a drawing, take heart. You can get out of that corner by making changes; even big changes!
Sign up for Carrie’s free weekly newsletter and be among the first to know when she publishes new articles.
