Reclaiming La Carte

 Not yet named; reclaimed La Carte and a new prairie image.

Save money and have fun by re-working your Sennelier La Carte paper.  Some papers can be reclaimed by pastel artists; new artwork can be made on top of failed images.  But, many artists don't consider Sennelier La Carte durable enough to reclaim.  To worsen this impression, La Carte is water hating, and so washing off an image isn't considered.

This artwork was done on re-claimed Sennelier La Carte paper.

Sometimes Weather
9" x 7"
Pastel
Casey Klahn 

I want to introduce you to the many ways you can re-purpose your valuable Sennelier La Carte paper, as I have been doing successfully for the past few months.  Additionally, I have achieved new techniques from these methods - rewarding me with fresh ideas and images.


With the Great Recession in full pace, I have been searching for ways to save on material costs in the studio.  I have been turning to my stock of Rives BFK, Legion and other papers. 


I have always enjoyed Wallis, which is hands down the most durable sanded paper available.  You can wipe, wash and re-use it to your heart's delight.  Not so much the sensitive French sanded ground, La Carte.  La Carte is a professional, acid-free and colorfast board that has a sanded texture created with vegetable matter.  I prefer it for my own methods - it is the surface most suitable for my style of both heavy handed application of color, and also gentle scumbling and overlaying.  Nothing beats whispering a Diane Townsend Terrage pastel over it's grainy surface, mixing optically with the under layers.  Now add the rich pinks and blues from your Sennelier à l'écu sticks and you have advanced to the seventh heaven of artistry. 

 Erratic Boulder

6.25" x 8.5"

Pastel & Charcoal, re-claimed La Carte Paper

Casey Klahn

The following methods have proven successful for reclaiming Sennelier La Carte: 


Identify abandoned works that you are going to reclaim.  I look for lighter pastel coverage, although I have reused heavily worked surfaces, too.  It is just harder to find enough tooth available, but it helps if there is an image there that you can imagine as an under painting - it may become a brilliant foundation for your new art.  Read on to learn my tricks for finding more tooth in your used Sennie paper.


Brush away the existing pastel dust with a flat brush.  A smooth, cheap paint brush works great - I work the surface one direction at a time, and tap the paper to release stuck dust.  Repeat this process to see how much you can remove, and you'll soon get an idea of how exciting this method can be.

Wipe the old pastel off gently with tissue, a paper towel or a chamois cloth.  My favored method is with the tissue, after I have already removed as much as possible with a brush.  There will be bits of tissue remaining, and that can easily be brushed away - especially if you were gentle. 

Wash the old image away, as another option.  The proper solvent is Turpenoid, which is low odor, and works fine for under painting and blending your pastel on La Carte.  I have had some success with this method, but I do find that it fills the tooth more than the brushing or wiping methods.


Still having trouble getting your pastel to take?  I have found two more methods to reclaim my cleaned-up old La Carte.

Spray the surface with fixative.  Right now, my favorite spray is No-Odor Blair, which I can use in the studio with minimum discomfort.  I also like Spectrafix, but at the point where I am starting to add pastel to a reclaimed surface, I want the most coverage I can get from my spray.  Another method would be to apply several layers of the Spectrafix.  For subsequent layers, after my colors have been established, I use Lascaux spray, which changes my colors the least.  I don't want to add spray at the end of my work, though, since the highlights need to pop.

Sand the surface to bring back just enough texture to accept more pastel.  I tried a sandpaper block made of foam, and it actually worked great!  The finer side of a two-sided block works, and I have found that it is only needed on small areas and not the whole painting.  The conditions will be that you have developed your painting, and will have a nicely resolved artwork, except that a limited area will be dull and resist new marks.  Like with the brush, sand in one direction only, to avoid tearing the paper.


Now consider some new techniques brought out by reclaiming old La Carte. In many cases, I have created new works that allow old colors to bleed or to show through.  Some become vardøgr images, and some provide rich under paintings (red under green in a tree).  I have taken to imagining my new image around an old composition, often turning the old painting upside down or sideways.

A crowded build-up of art in my studio.  I may be handy with supports, but can't get around to putting up that 1 piece of drywall!  Any guesses on who I was trying to draw on that big one?

Did you sneeze on your La Carte pastel painting?  Then you may have run up against the dreaded white hole of melted-off surface that has plagued many Sennelier users.  See this post with repair solutions for damaged works (h/t Sheila M. Evans).


My images at Sennelier: here.

Galerie des Artistes - Sennelier

You may add your own Sennelier based pastels at their website. The link is here.

Sennelier Critique

Blue Branches on Red
14” x 10”
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

Sennelier Extra-Soft Pastels “à l’écu” have a wide, wide range of colors. 525 current in the line. Go here to see a run down of the types of pastels, their sizes and sets available. I think a friend of mine said that she bought a full set with prize money, once. Other than that, I noticed once that Daniel Greene uses a full set. Personally, I have a hard time seeing myself using a full set, but if Santa is willing...

I know that I have some discontinued ones (high key greens) in my palette. Once, I bought their 100 landscape set when it was being updated with different colors. As soon as it arrived, I broke each stick in half and peeled the wrappers off of the halves that went into use, and stored the remainder in my back-up boxes, by hue and value. Then, I shed a tear at how easily the hundred sticks disappeared into the whole of my collection. I have a hard time finding which ones are actually Sennies.

To get a feeling for this experience, the next time you get home from the grocer, take that new gallon carton of milk and jab it through the bottom with a butcher knife. See? How's that feel?

That's part of a pastel artist's life, though. Ruin the tools; rid yourself of the precious. Now, you might be free to actually create something. It reminds me of this hilarious scene in a World War One movie where Bill Murray is a medic sergeant who gets a spankin' new ambulance donated by school kids from America and the green driver is so proud to arrive at the front lines with this gem. Murray pulls out his revolver and starts shooting out the headlights and blowing holes in the doors. Google reminds me this movie was titled The Razor's Edge, and few others liked it but me. I am so weird.

This over dramatization I bring to you for a reason. Art is wholly about discarding the precious. Who cares if Senneliers crumble a little every now and then? This is the price you pay for very clear ultramarine blues.

I learned something from Lisa Bachman's post about the darks available from Sennelier. I am more prone to establishing big areas of dark, and so I favor the bigger Diane Townsend Terrage sticks. These sticks are so dark, I have a hard time getting them back in their proper place in my palette. Good to know that Sennelier makes dark darks, too.

I reach for the Sennies to establish really bright and pure color passages in my paintings. An example can be seen in this detail from Blue Branches.

Lisa Bachman

Pastel Tools & Me Sennies

Lisa Bachman, who doesn't use Cockney, posted today her review of Senneliers. Go have a look, and she gets into some good details on the darks.

The pastel world did suffer from a lack of darks for some time, I understand. But, I do know that when you buy a box set of pastels, even a 100 count landscape set, that you will likely still be missing dark darks. So, heed well Lisa's illumination of her favorite darks. And, I use the Cockney to, hopefully, bring down my reading level score.

Sennelier Extra-Soft Pastels “à l’écu”

Sennelier Extra-Soft Pastels “à l’écu”

The three French brands of pastels, that I know of, are all color-centric. I love that focus. The three are Henri Roche, Pastels Girault, and Sennelier. In this second of my series on pastel brands, we will inspect the renowned Sennelier.

Chemist Gustave Sennelier founded in 1887 what would become the premier artist's paint resource of France. His store front was strategically placed within spitting distance of Paris' great museum and academy, the Louvre and the École des Beaux Arts. Of course, the Maison Sennelier faces the Left Bank of the Seine River, and Gustave's paint lab became eventually "the" place for the Avante-Garde of Impressionism.

Fine colors were purveyed to the likes of Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Bonnard, Soutine, Picasso, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Dali, van Gogh. If the walls of his storied Maison could only speak, how they would celebrate the conversations shared by these giants! The artists interacted with Sennelier in order to fulfill their needs for new colors.

Next posts: Details and critique.