Review: Wildlife in pastels on UArt 500 Sanded Paper vs Clairefontaine Pastelmat

When I first started using pastels, I used non-sanded paper because that was all I had. But I soon discovered that most pastel artists use sanded paper. Sanded paper has grit on it and feels like sandpaper. This helps the surface grab the pastels and allow you to layer better. 

One type of paper in particular, Clairefontaine Pastelmat, has got to be THE favourite surface among pastel artists. Every other pastel artist I watched on YouTube uses this paper, so curiosity got the better of me. Unfortunately, sanded paper is frightfully expensive compared to non-sanded paper, so I proceeded with caution and ordered a sampler pack from Jackson's Art which contained 7 sheets of popular sanded paper brands, one of which was Pastelmat.

I did a commissioned piece on that paper - of two alpacas. This was using Panpastels as the underlayer and pastel pencils on top.

 

Here are my thoughts: Pastelmat is an interesting surface. When you touch it, it doesn't feel like sanded paper - it's relatively smooth. Yet, it allows for many layers of pastels, which is the main reason why many artists love it. I could pile lots of colour on top of each other without problem, especially the all important light over dark. It's quite a forgiving surface.

However, I'm not sure I like it as much as I thought I would. While you can layer, I find that the bottom layer shows through easily, which means that as I layer white on top of dark, it becomes muted. I also found it hard to blend - once you place the colour in a position, it kinda sticks there. I couldn't move the pigment around properly, and while that prevents too much smudging, the only way I could get a good blend was just to keep adding more colour, which ground my pastels pencils down very quickly.

But the biggest disadvantage about Pastelmat for me was that you CAN'T ERASE markings. If you're one of those experts who know what you're doing and don't generally make mistakes, that's fine. But for me, I sometimes find that I maybe added too much of a wrong colour and the area became muddy, or coloured in a wrong spot, in which case I would like to remove the marking. You can't do that on Pastelmat. It's very stressful. I tried using tape to lift the markings, a kneaded eraser, regular erasers, nothing worked. All I could do was layer more pastels on top to cover the mistakes and that, if not done carefully, could muddy the area even more.

Pastelmat was the first sanded paper I tried. Then I tried another in my sampler pack - Hahnemuhle velour paper, which I reviewed here. Yesterday, I decided to try UArt sanded paper, grade 500. UArt comes in different grades and the 500 grade is middle grittiness. The UArt 500 feels sandy to the touch, but it's not coarse grit like some others.

Here's my tiger cub drawing on the UArt paper. I used Panpastels as the underlayer, with soft pastel sticks and pastel pencils on top.

In some ways, UArt is similar to Pastelmat. It grips the pastels well, and I can layer on it effortlessly. It smudges slightly more easily than Pastelmat, which makes blending easier. However, the one big difference between the two is that I can ERASE marks on UArt! Just a regular eraser and marks come right off, without much pressure. 

This is a big deal for me. For example, I used the wrong shade on the nose and when I tried blending it out, everything became one muddy mess. If this was Pastelmat, the only thing I could do would be to try and layer more pigment on it, which in my experience, will simply create even more mud. But since this was on UArt, I simply erased the whole section and started again. 

For this reason alone, UArt wins over Pastelmat for me. I will try out the rest of the sampler pack soon, and share my thoughts on the other paper types.

You can buy Pastelmat, UArt or the sampler pack from Jackson's Art. If you use this referral link, I'll get a few points.