Fixative and the ‘Road To Damascus’

Let’s talk about fixative!  I think it is fair to say that when it comes to the use of fixative there are polarised views.  In fact, there are probably as many opinions about the use of fixative as there are pastellists.  On one side of the arc are those who are happy to use it with gay abandon and on the other side of the arc there are those who would rather eat their own spleen than add fixative to their work.

Of course, most lay somewhere between the two extremes.  I’m not saying where I am on the arc but about 10 years ago I invested a bit of effort in trying all the best quality brands and eventually found one that was nearly “acceptable”.  I’ve still got that same can with over half left.

When Victoria from Unison Colour asked me if I’d do a review of their fixative, I was a little unsure.  However, I am a Chartered Physicist and Engineer and as such, professionally committed to only putting my name to evidence / fact-based conclusions.  Hopefully, then, as a “professional doubter” I was the perfect choice for an objective review.

Unison Colour Pastel Fixing Spray – the review.

Unison Colour Pastel Fixing Spray comes in a 400ml Aerosol can and is driven by CFC free propellant.  Depending on where you buy it from it’s £14-19 and at a similar price point to other premium brands.  The can itself has both warnings and directions for use printed on it.  I found in use that the spray was easy to control with little or no splattering (this is not the case with every brand).

In testing the effectiveness of the fixative, I approached it by examining both the “known issues with fixative” and “expected attributes of fixative”.  I used Unison Colour pastels and Canson mi teints touch (grey) paper unless otherwise stated.  Apart from cropping and resizing, none of the photos used in this report have been altered in any way.  Let’s see how we got on.

Unison Fixative and Tone.

One of the known uses of fixative with pastels is to fix a tonal underpainting.  Conversely, one of the known issues with fixative that it darkens tone and also destroys slight tonal differences.  The fact that Unison Colour’s pastels already come in 6 tones was very useful for this, testing the effectiveness of the fixative in handling tone.  I took all 6 tones of Blue Violet 1 to 6 and created a “landscape” of hills / trees receding back to the lightest tone BV1 which I used for the sky.  I then used the fixative as directed and applied 3 light layers on top.  You can see the before and after pictures below.

The fixative maintained the 6 different tones very well and if I was being ultra-picky the only difference that I could perceive (not obvious in the photos) between the 2 was the slightest loss of brightness in the lightest tone but this was marginal, at worst.

Unison Colour Fixative and Colour

One of the known issues with fixative is that it can alter colours.  In this test I took colours of the same tone (all the darks) and created a soft nebulous background.  I then applied 3 light layers of the fixative to see if the colours were affected.

The fixative kept the colours spectacularly.  If I was being ultra-critical I could perceive the slightest darkening of the redder pigments but again this was marginal.

I repeated this test but applied one very thick layer of fixative (completely not as directed).  It’s interesting to see how poor application of the fixative resulted in a much worse outcome.  Much of the colour was lost and that which remained was seriously darkened.  Of course, you could use this aspect artistically to generate a very subtle bokeh background if you weren’t so interested in colour faithfulness.

Unison Colour Fixative and Intensity.

One of the most common complaints about fixative is that it destroys the intensity of colour of pastels.  Most would consider this the cardinal sin as one of the things we all love about pastels is how putting pure pigment down gives such an intense effect.  To test how Unison Colour fixative altered intensity I took some complementary colours to increase the “pop” (BG13, BG16, Orange 1, Red 8) putting blue greens against orange reds and then tested the effect of applying the fixative (as directed).

I could detect no change in intensity before and after using the Unison Colour fixative – this was an unexpected and remarkable result.

Unison Colour Fixative and details.

Another known issue of fixative is that it can destroy small details.  In this test I created a similar background to the colour test using the Unison Colour darks and then used a razor blade to add “stars” of various sizes on top using the Unison Colour lights.  The stars were pressed into the surface using glassine before fixative was applied.

In comparing the two images, it is evident that not a single star was lost.  I have never seen any other fixative perform this well.

Unison Colour Fixative and re-establishing a key.

As we all know, some degree of roughness (key) is required on our pastel surface in order to transfer pigment from the pastel to the surface.  As layers are added, every paper eventually gets this key filled up and it is not possible to effectively add more layers.  Fixative can then be used to re-establish a key such that more pastel layers can be added.

In this test I used Canson Mi-Teints touch paper and also Unison Colour’s own hand-made paper which has a much rougher texture.  I used layers of Green 31-36 to deliberately fill up the key on both papers – it should be noted that it takes some considerable effort to fill up the key on the Unison Colour paper.

I then tried to add a detail with a pastel pencil before fixing and then trying to add a detail in pastel pencil and a soft pastel. In the pictures you’ll notice 3 small vertical lines – the left hand one is pastel pencil (Derwent Indigo36D) prior to fixative, the middle the same pastel pencil after fixative was added and the right one a pastel line (Grey1) after fixative was added.

It can be seen from the pictures that the fixative was effective at re-establishing the key on both types of paper.

Unison Colour Fixative and fixing the top layer.

When considering the use of fixative most people think of it as a mechanism to stabilise the top layer of a pastel painting to prevent smudging.  That being said, for those who don’t like to use fixative this is the last place where they would apply it for all the potential issues mentioned previously.  In this test I took parallel lines of Green 29 and Red 6 and then tested the stability of the surface by pulling my fingers across the lines.  I did this for no fixative and then for 1-4 layers.

It can be seen from the picture that the surface was nearly 100% stable for 3 layers and completely stable at 4 layers.  It can again be seen that additional layers of fixative did not alter the tone or colour in any way.

Conclusions.

Without any shadow of doubt, when used as directed, Unison Colour Pastel Fixing Spray is the best I have ever used.  It effectively renders tone, colour, intensity and details.  It can re-establish a key and stabilise your top layer.  As an absolute fixative hater, I have had a road to Damascus moment and now am a convert.  I don’t think I’m quite at the level of not putting a pastel behind glass, but I certainly would be happy to send an original pastel fixed with Unison Colour fixative through the post, something I would never have done before.  In fact, I would go so far as saying that I don’t see a reason not to use this fixative on all my work.  If you still have your doubts, I would suggest that for a ~£17 investment its worth giving it a go, just to see if you get your own “Road to Damascus” conversion.

Unison Colour Fixative 400ml

Rated 4.00 out of 5 based on 1 customer rating

(1 customer review)

£18.79

A colourless, non-yellowing medium for Pastel, Pencil, Charcoal, Crayon, Chalk Drawings and Paintings. ONLY AVAILABLE TO SHIP WITHIN THE UK.

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Unison Colour Fixative 400ml quantity

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SKU: 883

Category: Fixative

Tags: fixative