Varnish Experiments

I am thoroughly enjoying living near a big city. I have had to order my art supplies online because my only art stores in Keene were Michaels or my local frame shop, who was great but had limited items or you had to know what you wanted to special order. I went to the Dick Blick the other day in Portland and was able to pick up several varnishes to try out. If you order online you have to pay a fee for the flammable products so I never ordered too many online to be able to experiment with. 

I am varnishing on a makeshift table made out of a wardrobe moving box. I'm glad they get to be used for something. 

Here's The varnishes I got to try. On the left is Grumbacher final fixative that I sprayed on first. It did a good job not altering the colors much. It slightly darkened the darks which I am okay with. It did also eat a little of the green background on my slug picture below. That, however is probably because that was straight Coloursoft and I was told that some Coloursofts are actually water soluble to an extent. Next time I will make sure to layer some prisma over that color or at least a colorless blender. 

The other two were mentioned by Ranjini Venkatachari who works very similar to me. This stuff is AMAZING. I bought satin and gloss. When the satin dries you wouldn't even know it was there except when you touch it and feel the protective barrier. I think I can even photograph it without glare. The gloss will bring out your colors more and make them slightly more vibrant if you are looking for that. 

This is my CPSA etry that will be going to the International show this summer. I was worried about varnishing it because I was having issues with a lot of things changing or pencil being eaten away with the Krylon I was using in Keene. I am SO pleased. It really didn't change at all and I can feel confident sending it off to California. 

This is the one that the background green got eaten away by the fixative. I really think that color must be a little water soluble so I am not too worried about that. 

Next I need to try the Golden Varnish without the fixative and see if that is okay as well. 

Framing Colored Pencil Without Glass

Today is an art working day, but no new artwork has been worked on. Why? Because I needed to finish off and frame the 2 pieces I just finished and deliver them to the gallery. This blog post will explain what I do to finish off a piece of art, but first I'll have to explain the process and supplies I use.


Most of you know that my still-lifes are framed without glass.  I do this for a couple of reasons:
 1. to make pictures seem more approachable/intimate.
 2. to bypass the perils of framing with mats & glass.


I've tried quite a few surfaces for colored pencil that can be framed without glass, but my favorite is Ampersand Pastelbord which is described as "a clay and gesso coated hardboard panel with a granular marble dust finish comparable to a sanded pastel paper..." It was first recomended by my friend/artist Louise Sackett who thought I was a little nutty trying to make my own sanded board with grit, paint, etc. when Ampersand has a pre-made board. 


Choosing a Color


It comes in grey, green, tan and white. I find the white board unusable for my techniques unfortunately. The grain is quite large on Pastelbord so whatever the color the board is, that color  will show in the "grain" as dots in the finished artwork. The white is just too white when seen in dark areas of the composition, throwing the values of the piece off. I prefer working with one of the colors and choose the color based on what I think will look the best in the grain of the piece. If I have a piece like Tea with Milk  that is mostly cool colors, I'll choose the grey board because the little specks of grey in the grain will influence the overall tone of the piece. 

Pieces like Italian Decadence is a bit harder to choose. The overall tone is warm, but the tan board is light and would lighten the dark areas of the cloth and bottles of oil too much... so I'd be better off using either green or grey board. 


Building Up Your Lights. 


Using colored board is a bit different than using white or beige paper because you have to make sure that your light and medium colored objects look bright enough on that color, especially after varnishing. What I do is build up my lights in the light and medium  areas to make sure they glow.  Since this post is on what I do when I finish a piece, I'll save this explanation for another post. 


Colored Pencils That Can Be Varnished


 Not all colored pencil brands can be varnished. Faber-Castell Polychromos (which I use for all my portraits) can not be varnished. The paint thinner that is in spray varnishes to keep them liquid eats away at the colored pencils, and the oil binder in Polychromos can't withstand it so your drawing literally dissolves away. I've found that Derwent Coloursofts, Prismacolors, and Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils all do well with spray varnish, although you still have to be ready for some colored pencil to dissolve and color changes with the process. 


Using the Prismacolor Colorless Blender to Minimize Dissolving Pencil

Despite these changes in the drawing when you varnish, I still think it is worth doing to stay away from glass. Plus you can anticipate the changes that will happen and minimize the changes or use them for your advantage. One thing that happens when you varnish is a small amount of colored pencil will dissolve, making more of the color of the board show through. That is why I build up my lights in light areas when working on a dark surface.  If there are enough light layers of colored pencil under your color, it will darken less (demonstration in future post). Also if you regularly build up your pencil to burnishing levels it seems to not have as many significant changes. I don't usually burnish however, so I've found that  if I put a layer of Prismacolor's Colorless Blender on my pieces, especially in the lighter areas, the colors stay brighter. Going back through the piece to add the blender pencil takes time, but it also gives you a chance to blend the pencil in some of the grain and soften edges if needed. I've found that adding the blender only on the areas that I don't want to darken is sufficient and actually adding the blender over black or dark areas leaves some light colored wax, so I wouldn't do it. 


After you finish adding colorless blender over your drawing just make sure you remove any colored pencil dust before varnishing (or hair or whatever else has fallen on your artwork) as it will be a permanent fixture to the piece if you leave it there!   


Varnishing, Finally


I use canned spray varnish over my pieces. I once sadly tried a brush on kind and wiped my entire drawing off, so using a spray on varnish ensures the pencil stays in place until it dries. There are matte, semi gloss and gloss versions of the spray and any of them will work, so choose the look you like best. I've used them all, and right now I am enjoying the look of the glossy finish. Today I used Grumbacher's Picture and Oil Painting Varnish in the Gloss finish which I purchased locally at Michael's. You can use other brands; I've even used Krylon's Kamar varnish from Walmart, but you need to make sure it says "Non-Yellowing" and test it first on a scrap drawing. 

When you spray, hold the can at least 8-10 inches away from your piece and only spray a fine mist at a time. If you spray a whole bunch so it pools, more colored pencil will dissolve. After spraying the whole thing in a fine mist, let it dry and do it over again. Repeat until it is evenly coated and the entire surface has a glossy wet sheen. I hold my drawing up to the light and tilt it to see if there are any dull areas that indicate missed spots. That's it, if you have a nice even finish without any exposed colored pencil purchasers of your artwork will have a protected surface that they can then wipe clean with a damp cloth  if need be. 


You might notice that the dark areas of your drawing got a little deeper or that very subtle glazes of colored pencil disappeared with the varnish. The more you varnish your colored pencil work, the more you will be able to anticipate these changes and work them into your design, As a last note... if you are going to photograph your artwork you may want to do that before you varnish so you don't have to work around the glare of the varnish finish. 


Italian Decadence and Tea with Milk are now showing at the Monadnock Fine Art Gallery in downtown Keene, NH. Call 603-352-3201 if you are interested. 

Disaster!

You won't believe me when I tell you what I did... its something that was so stupid, that it can't be true.

Well, the pretty portrait of my daughter Lizzy... is no more. I sprayed it with two coats of my usual Lascaux fixative and then used my new Lascaux brush on varnish on it... and it picked up the colored pencil and redistributed it with every brushstroke. It made me sick to my stomach to see it wrecked like that.... so I had to redo it. :-(
The one on the left is the wrecked one. It is darker because the pencil from the dark areas are now spread around, plus you can see the brush strokes where the pigments huddled together.

So yes the one on the right is the beginning of the redo. I was heartbroken and hoped I could replicate it. I find redoing a picture I was happy with very very hard to do. Instead of doing things in order I jump to what I know I did before and forget some important steps.

Well here is the finished do-over. Remember when a do-over was a good thing... something you begged to be able to do??? I hope this one doesn't disappoint.

Sealing Experiments

I've had loads of questions on how I seal my colored pencil drawings on Pastelbord to make them frameable without glass.

I've been using first 2 coats of Lascaux fixativ and then 4 light coats of the Kamar varnish spray. I have had good results except that it ALWAYS darkens the colors. Sometimes that's a good thing... sometimes its very bad. Ideally your spray shouldn't change colors though... I mean you work hard to get a picture perfect and then hope the spray doesn't change it too much. That's not good policy.

I found out why the spray (aerosol) varnish and some fixatives change the colors. To keep the sprays liquid they all have a little bit of solvent in them, in differing amounts for different brands, which is why some brands of fixative change colors more than others. If you've ever used solvent when you are making a drawing you can attest to the fact that the solvent with colored pencil really darkens the colors.

So that's why I am so excited about my friend Gary's experiments with brush on water-based varnishes and why I'm joining in on the fun. I had been using the spray aerosol varnish because the colored pencil on Pastelbord is a bit unstable anyway (can be brushed off fairly easily) so I was afraid to brush on a varnish. BUT it seems like if you use a good fixative first you can avoid smearing. Gary has tried Golden's varnish for acrylics with good results so far.

I tried brush on varnish from Liquitex yesterday on a test piece and had some trouble with the pencil smearing. Lots of trouble when the colored pencil wasn't fixed first and much less when it was fixed. Gary gave me some tips to try and I'll see if I can't get it not to smear.

Next I'm trying Lascaux's varnish for acrylics. It too is water-based. They also sell a sprayer that you can use with it so I bought it as well. I'm hoping that since I use Lascaux fixative first, that the varnish, although it is water-based, will have no problems adhering which could be another problem.

The nice part of these alternatives, as well as them not changing the colors of your drawing, is that they also have lightfast qualities to protect your work even more.

So I'll let you know soon!