Have you ever drawn or written something in pencil and had it smear? It happens.

another pencil drawing for “The Cabins of Wilsonia”

As a right hander, I draw from left to right and top to bottom. If I have to go back over something,   I put a piece of paper on the drawing and rest my hand on that instead of on the graphite already on the paper. (Pencils are made out of graphite and clay – the more graphite, the blacker and smearier the pencil. Just sayin’, in case you care about stuff like that.)

When a finished drawing gets framed immediately, I don’t spray fix it.

Spray fixative smells awful, and I’m not entirely convinced that in 100 years it won’t turn green or something else undesirable. And OF COURSE in 100 years my drawings will be worth a fortune for your grandchildren or great grandchildren!

But, when a drawing gets hauled around and shown to my drawing students and pulled in and out of its protective holder and put in and out of the scanner several times, it seems prudent to spray fix it.

You know how spray cans of stuff usually state a temperature range that is ideal for using the product? Uh, they mean it.

Last week I sprayed a couple of drawings early in the morning. The heat hadn’t been on in my studio, of course, and this is January during a bit of a cold snap. (cold for central California – stop sneering, those of you from Minnesota!)

Oh-oh. There was a puddle of spray in the middle of one of the drawings, and it sort of ran a little bit. I hustled the drawings into the house and set them on a teevee tray in front of the wood stove.

In about a half an hour, they had both dried, and the papers had sort of curled up. QUICK, put a weight on those things!

My husband, AKA Trail Guy, was quite concerned about the puddle. “Hey, there’s a wet spot on that picture!!”

I thought, “Oh well, live and learn. 143 drawings to do, 144, what’s the diff?”

But, I was Very Relieved that it turned out okay. (Nope, not the drawing pictured above. I’m not telling you which one had the near miss!)