Are there cheaper alternatives to Pastelmat?

When I watch pastel artists on YouTube, 80% of them recommend using Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper.

Pastelmat is a type of sanded paper, meaning it has been treated to have a rough surface that enables pastels to "grip" onto the paper. Many tyes of sanded paper feel like sandpaper that you get from the hardware store. Pastelmat feels relatively smooth compared to most other sanded paper, but it allows for many layers of pastels, so it's very forgiving. I wrote a comparison post between Pastelmat and UArt, another type of sanded paper.

Some pastel artists even refuse to use any other type of paper, basically implying that you can only create good art on Pastelmat and you're robbing yourself if you use anything else.

Well, that's all well and good, except for one very small hiccup: Pastelmat (and most sanded papers) costs an arm and a leg. It's not just slightly more expensive either. To give you a better idea, the non-sanded tinted paper that I buy generally range from S$0.50 to S$0.80 a sheet of 9 x 12 inch (slightly larger than A4) size. Pastelmat can cost from S$3.50 to S$5 PER SHEET of the same size.

Now, I don't know about you but that's a lot of moolah to me, and I'm not even a starving artist. If you're a student or someone just drawing for fun, knowing that you're burning $5 every time you paint, is enough to make you sweat. Unless you're painting on commission or are a professional artist or are loaded, it's just not tenable to use Pastelmat all the time. 

So are there cheaper alternatives to Pastelmat? Or are we doomed to sub-par paintings if we can't afford to use it? After trying out various papers for a few months, I'm happy to say that I have two to recommend.

First, the caveat is that these two are not sanded papers. In general, all sanded papers are more expensive simply because they have to be treated. The argument against non-sanded paper is that because of its smoother texture, it can't grip pastels as well and therefore can't take as many layers. I can't argue with that - it's true. But these two that I've tried can hold a reasonable number of layers - certainly not 20, but at least 5 or so, and that makes them very viable alternatives in my book.

1) Canson Mi-Teintes

Canson Mi-Teintes is one of the earliest paper I used, when I wanted to try out toned paper. Not to be confused with Canson Mi-Teintes Touch which is a sanded paper, the regular Canson Mi-Teintes comes in a variety of shades, both in pads and individual sheets.

It's 33% cotton, 160gsm and has two sides. The front is a rough honeycomb texture and the back has a smoother tooth. I first bought this paper for coloured pencils but have since realised that pastels work pretty well on it too. For both coloured pencils and pastels, I prefer using the back. The front honeycomb texture is just too rough for my liking.

I like how pastel pencils draw easily on this paper which has just enough bite to grab the pigment without it sliding around, and yet not be too toothy so that lines come out jagged and fuzzy. It's pretty enjoyable using this paper and I don't have to fight the texture. I can get fine details like whiskers to show up on this paper without too much effort.

I drew this cat using pastel pencils on one of the darker toned Canson Mi-Teintes (bauble and cat's eyes are in coloured pencil).

Price: About S$18.50 for a pad of 30 sheets (24x32cm) from Art Friend, which works out to be a very affordable S$0.60 per sheet.

2) Strathmore Artagain 400 Series Tinted Paper

This was a more recent find - I wanted to try different coloured paper and this one had a range of interesting tints (pink, green, blue!)

I had bought this for coloured pencils and wasn't expecting it for work well for pastels because it feels very smooth to the touch. The two other Strathmore papers with texture that I tried had failed dismally for pastels. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that pastels not only went on this paper very well, it worked even better than other types of paper that was labelled as for pastels! While it doesen't seem to have much tooth, I can somehow layer pastels on it without hitting saturation too quickly. I don't know how it works, but it mysteriously does. The bonus is that with the smoother surface, the paper doesn't eat up your pastels as quickly as say, a sanded paper.

These were the first two pieces I tried using Panpastels and pastle pencils on the Artagain paper. The colour simply glided on and doing the backgrounds was a cinch.  

I enjoyed drawing these two so much that when I received a commission to draw a hornbill, I used the paper again.

The only drawbacks are that a lot of dust is created when I try to blend on this paper, and it smudges very easily, so you need to be careful about not getting unwanted splotches everywhere. It probably has to do with the smoothness of the paper. But those are just minor observations. It really is a nice paper option for pastels.

Price: S$12.90 for a pad of 24 sheets (9x12 inches) from Overjoyed, which comes up to about S$0.55 per sheet. An economical tip is to buy the 12 x 18 inch sized pad and cut them to the size you want. That brings down the cost even more.

So there you go - two perfectly viable and affordable options to Pastelmat. Of course, I think these two don't quite match up exactly to Pastelmat, but you can use these for times when you're just experimenting or drawing for fun, and keep Pastelmat for the more serious or commissioned pieces. This way, you don't have to break the bank when creating art.

Happy drawing!

If you're not in Singapore, you can buy all these art supplies from Jackson's Art. If you use my referral link, I'll get a few points.