Should I use fixatives for pastel drawings and which works best?

One of the dilemmas of pastel paintings is that they're very dusty and smudge very easily. You would think that the solution is simple - just spray a fixative over the top. However, as with life, things are rarely that straightforward.

 

I tried out three different fixatives over the past couple of months or so and find that they all have shortcomings in some way. According to pastel artists, these are common problems with most fixatives, not just the three I've tried. The common issues are:

1) Although fixatives claim to "fix" paintings, they seldom do, even those specifically labelled for pastels. Well, most of them do to some extent, but none of them will actually make your drawing totally smudge-free. That's right - none. You just have to accept that if you're going to use pastels, they will smudge.

2) Most fixatives will alter the colour of your pastels. Jackson's Art did a comprehensive review of many brands of fixatives and came to this conclusion. In other words, you may have a perfect rendition of an animal and after you spray the fixative, you realise that the colour of the fur has turned one shade darker. Bummer.

When I first started pastel drawing, I bought a can of Daler Rowney's Perfix Colourless Fixative (farmost left in the above pic) from Art Friend (S$9.40 for 150ml). I found that if I sprayed three layers of this (after allowing each layer to dry), I could reduce the smudge level of the drawings quite well. However, the colour alteration was pretty obvious. White whiskers turned a shade of dull beige, and basically anything vibrant became more muted. 

So when I made another trip to Art Friend, I saw the Krylon Workable Fixatif (middle item in photo above) and thought I would try that instead. Price-wise, it's cheaper than the Daler Rowney Perfix as it's a much larger bottle (S$12.90 for 311g), and it states that you can continue to work on the piece in between layers, which I thought was interesting.

I'll come right out and say it: this was the worst buy in my entire (albeit short) art life. Why? Because it basically does nothing. I sprayed one layer, then two, then three, then four in a rage. The pastels still smudged as badly as before I'd sprayed anything. And the worst part was the smell. The fumes are overwhelmingly toxic and linger in a ventilated room even after one whole day. I had to spray this only outdoors because I felt like I was developing lung cancer just being in the vicinity as this. The only teeny tiny thing I can say in its favour is that it didn't alter the colour of the painting much... but that's because it does squat. This is possibly the scammiest product I've ever encountered. It's a physical and emotional hazaard.

So I was back to the Daler Rowney, until I read about SpectraFix's spray. This one is different in that it's made with only casein, water and alcohol, so has no toxic fumes. Because of this, you can spray it indoors and continue working on your painting without concern over your health. In fact, this recipe was developed for famous Impressionist artist Degas (the guy who drew all those ballerinas)! Fascinating.

The non-toxic bit was very attractive to me so I decided to try it. I couldn't find it on sale in Singapore, but because it doesn't come in a pressurised aerosol container (not allowed on planes), I could order it from the UK. This is both good and bad. Since the container is a simple pump spray, people have complained about the fixative being ejected in large droplets, causing visible splatter on the paintings. Following the advice by other artists, I bought a mister (the kind they use in hair salons) which would dispense the fixative in a fine, continuous mist.

I was very hopeful. Would this be the fixative to end my search? Unfortunately, not quite. Even though I used the mister, I still had droplets form on my painting, to my dismay. I'm showing a closeup of before I sprayed the fixative (above) and after (below). You can see little dots on the painting below - that was caused by the fixative spray.

Well, colour me vexed. Thankfully, you can work over this fixative, so I was able to smoothen out the splotches, but really, that's just creating more work than fixing a problem. On the good side, SpectraFix does seems to "set" the pastels a little and reduce smudging. And it doesn't alter the colour as dramatically as Daler Rowney.

I now understand why some pastel artists choose not to use fixatives at all, and I'm inclined to go that route if I use sanded paper, which grips the pastels better. The only way to really protect a pastel drawing is to frame it behind glass, and that's what I tell my customers. 

If I'm using non-sanded paper however, I still prefer to use fixative because non-sanded paper is so smooth that without some protection, the smudging can get truly bad. I'll either spray Spectrafix in betwen layers as I can work on top of it to hide the droplet stains, or just spray a couple of layers of Daler Rowney Perfix at the end, if it's not that critical for the painting to retain its original shades. Or both.

So it's a fine balance, really, between smudginess and colour alteration. It depends on which you're willing to compromise on. I'm sorry to tell you there's no perfect solution. Such is life, isn't it?