Using charcoal on canvas with other media

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Using charcoal on canvas with other media

by Dar Hosta
(Flemington, NJ)

Acrylic on canvas with ink

Hi Thaneeya,

Your website and your art is wonderful! I stumbled across it this morning and am so happy I found it. I am an artist who works with lots of kids and teachers and I can't wait to share your site as a resource. Love, love, love that you have opened up your treasure trove of knowledge.

My question is this: If I use charcoal on top of a canvas/acrylic paint/acrylic ink piece, what should I "seal" it with? I haven't tried it yet, but I'm guessing it needs to be sealed or it will smear. Typically I do not seal my paintings because I use metallics a lot and the seal takes away the difference between matte paints and metallic paints. I am wondering if a spray fixative would be enough to keep the charcoal happy and in place. I would like to experiment with making bold lines on top of my paintings and my ink pen isn't bold enough.

Thanks for your help and I am looking forward to your newsletter...

Dar Hosta
www.darhosta.com
www.darhosta.wordpress.com

Hi Dar!

First, thanks so much for your kind words about my art and this website – I am glad to hear that is useful to you!

To answer your question:

If I use charcoal on top of a canvas/acrylic paint/acrylic ink piece, what should I "seal" it with?

I would definitely advise that you seal your mixed media art piece to keep the charcoal from smearing, otherwise the charcoal would smudge as soon as something brushed against it.

Rather than use a brush-on varnish (which would smear the charcoal anyway), you should use a spray varnish such as Golden Archival Spray Varnish or Lascaux UV Protect.

I recently answered another question about spray varnish that explains how to spray varnish your art, so that page might help give you an overview of what spray varnish is and how to use it. Most spray varnishes are available in gloss, satin or matte, so you can have some control over the sheen of the final finish.

If you want to keep the contrast between your metallics and your matte paints, you could consider adding the metallics last, and applying them over the spray varnish. So, you could add the charcoal, then spray with a matte spray varnish, then add some metallics over that. To protect it, you could apply some gloss varnish over the metallics with a brush. Just some ideas!

Hope that helps and Happy Art-Making!

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