Surfaces to Use with Watercolor-Pastel

I have experimented with may different surfaces searching for the best support for both pastel and watercolor.

 

Rag watercolor paper offers the most transparent, glowing washes but is somewhat fragile for pastel work when much reworking or blending is needed. 

Watercolor paper with tooth can produce too much overall texture  when pastel is applied.  This is especially disturbing when the paper in question has a mechanical texture. 

Note the mechanical texture on the red mountain.

 Close-up of texture

Some of the smooth watercolor paper (hot press) does not always offer enough tooth to hold the pastel.

It was difficult to get enough color into the sky area

on the smooth surfaced paper. 

Close-up of pastel applied to sky.

The two papers that have given me the most success are:

Strathmore Mixed Media paper (easily found and inexpensive):  This paper does not offer the brilliance achieved with rag watercolor paper but it is very sturdy and can survive much reworking.  It also does not have a lot of "tooth" but is sufficient for several applications of pastel.  A good choice if you are exploring a subject .

  Note the several applications of pastel on background trees.

Close-up of trees behind houses.

Arches Hot Press (archival quality):  Produces beautiful washes and will support pastel application if not overworked.  Plan ahead for those areas where you want to retain the transparent watercolor washes.  Then stay out of them.  You will never regain the transparent quality once you have introduced pastel into an area.  Fixing a lost "white" with a very light value pastel never results in the same effect as to leave the watercolor standing by itself. 

Note the brilliance of the golden sand (undisturbed watercolor wash)

contrasted with the solid vegetation (pastel).

Close-up of sand (watercolor wash).