To protect the pastel painting lightly spray it, today there are good acrylic fixatives. After the fixative dries the colors will be slightly muted. The last step is to brighten the highlights with more pastel. Be sure the glass covering the picture is at least 1/8 inch away from the picture.

In the past year, 2013, a product from the old days has been brought back, milk casine and grain alcohol fixative. Dagas used it. The brand name is Spectra Fix by Ms. Natural. www.spectrafix.com, USA Thank you for a great product, alcohol does dry clean & fast.

I found that I prefered painting pastels on macinite with another new product coating, water based pastel gesso, by D.Smith. Doing and finishing the painting in this way ( I made my own pastal panel with gesso and marble meal. ) I had no wrinkleing at all :) and the colors are gourgious.

Another new company in 2014, www.art-alternatives.com makes the first pastels with the primary pigments, PR122, PB15 and PY153. We have come a long way baby. I heard they are used to temporarily color streak hair too.