Monday, April 21, 2008

Pastel Wax Problem

I have a question for any artists out there who may have experience in working with (soft) pastels.

This weekend, I spent some time on a pastel drawing that was coming along rather nicely. then there was an accident. The paper fell onto a candle, face down, and knocked it over. When I picked it up there was a three-inch splotch of wax on my pastel!!!
I was heartbroken! It had been going so well. I had just another small section to develop and it would be finished, but now it was ruined!

I took a thin-edged spatula and gently scraped away most of the wax. But the area is still darker in color because of the wax and the sheen is different from the rest. Does anyone know how I can save the image? If I rework more pastel over the affected area, will it work to fix the problem? Should I try to iron the paper between newsprint sheets to make the wax soak into them?

Maybe an encaustic or batik artist out there somewhere will have an idea of what to do?
Thank you in advance. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

2 comments:

  1. Why don't you paint it with clear encaustic and turn it into an encaustic painting. Oil pastel works nicely under wax.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know how to do encaustic. I guess I could research it and learn. But Linda, this is soft pastel, not oil pastel. Would that make a difference?

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