For quite a long time now, a bloc of pastelmat paper was taking the dust on my shelf. I am used to paint on cannon paper or to prepare some of my pastel surfaces on a canvas with acrylic primer. As I am experimenting and doing cityscape sketches, I felt today was the right moment to try it out and see if I liked it.
Here is a small sketch, playing with colors on pastel mat, with a simplified view of lower Manhattan :
Lower Manhattan - Soft Pastel on Pastelmat
25X25cm
The disadvantage of drawing on a small format is that I have the feeling I loose a bit of sketching effects and a bit of the 'Freedom of Gesture' - difficult to dive into the composition and to mess around till I am satisfied with the atmosphere which is rendered. However, it is quite a good exercise to try to keep things simple and to paint with a synthetic mind.
As for the paper itself - it is very smooth, quite pleasant. I have to say I prefer something more textured, but I might work on it again : convenient and really takes both details in the line and the multiple pastel layers...
