Non-toxic Fixative Find

children's illustration

One week till Corn Hill Arts Festival! Whoo-ooo! My to-do list is finally getting smaller and the excitement is growing.

One of the last major projects was to mount my original gouache mixed media paintings to “ready to hang” wood panels. It was a little stressful, but thankfully the gluing and trimming went well. I had to do some experimenting and research on how to protect the art on the panel. I found a fantastic non-toxic fixative. It’s called SpextraFix. It’s a casein-based fixative that uses milk proteins and grain alcohol to provide a workable, all natural, archival fixative. Apparently, this is the material Degas used to protect his own pastel drawings!

I thought this product was great. It’s odor free, so you actually can use it indoors too. It dries within a couple of minutes to a matte finish without dulling the pigments. I coated my paintings with several layers of SpectraFix without any problems. I even tried to smear a painting with paper towels and it was kept intact! I will be recommending this product to my illustration students come this Fall.

Have you ever tried SpectraFix before?