Friskett And Alcohol - What does That Have To Do With pastel painting?

 

 

"Last Summer", 15 x 19, pastel on Canson Mi-Teintes Art Board.

 

 

I borrowed the concept of using frisket from my watercolor days. Before starting out on this pastel painting, The first thing I did was to cut out freehand shapes from ordinary masking tape and arranged them into what looked like an interesting placement on my canvas, one that helped to create and establish the composition and flow I wanted to achieve. In this case a loose x composition. My first layer of pastels were done in complimentary colors. I used my color wheel for this part.

 

Complimentary colors I used in this painting.

 

 

Detail of some of the places where I placed masking tape. Others not shown.

 

Once my complimentary colors loosely covered the paper, I did an alcohol wash using rubbing alcohol. I heard of one artist who used vodka ( a little for the painting, a little for her or maybe more) on second thought maybe not a bad idea. Then I proceeded on with the regular colors. Somewhere about three fourths of the way, I very gently removed the making tape as it has a tendency to pull the paper layer off with it. You want to preserve the integrity of the canvas below as it had an acid free coating on it for the preservation of the paper. Once done, I decided I liked the effect it created so I didn't apply any pastel over it. Now I proceeded to finish the painting. Btw, I felt like drinking some alcohol at times as I battled through this one.