Pastel Art Prints

Pastel Painting Tutorials

Storing your Pastel Paintings

In this section, we are going to talk about storing your work, a dilemma that faces all pastel artists.

Pastel paintings are both very durable and very fragile.

On the one hand, pastel pigment doesn’t fade or crack over time like paint, so your precious masterpieces will still be just as vibrantly colourful in a few hundred years’ time.

On the other hand, because a pastel painting is just pigment dust trapped in the ‘tooth’ of the surface, vibrations will cause it to shed some dust, and anything dragged across the surface will smear the pigment.

So what can be done about this?

Small numbers of unframed pastel artworks should be stored in stacks interleaved with sheets of glassine paper and foam core board, so that they are protected from rubbing against each other and are supported.

It’s important that they are undisturbed as much as possible.

For lasting protection and display, the only real option is to frame your work. Nothing beats seeing your own work up on a wall, and properly framed behind glass. It will be protected for life as well.

For best results use a professional framer, though it’s certainly possible to frame your own work, and probably something you may need to learn if you don’t want to go to the expense of paying a picture framer.

If you do decide to frame your own work, make sure that you use normal glass and not non-reflective glass. Non reflective glass will actually dull the painting, whereas normal glass will retain a genuine richness to the colours.

In our last module, we will go over what we have already discussed, and leave you with some final advice for your pastel painting experience.

That’s all in Module 10.