Do I need fixative, and how do I spray it without ruining the drawing?

Fixative is a dilute resin in solvent. It sticks loose pigment particles to the paper, and in doing so it always darkens the work slightly and always reduces the brilliance of the lightest passages. That trade-off is worth it for charcoal and pastel, which will otherwise simply fall off, and is often not worth it for graphite, which is fairly well attached already.

Safety

Step by step

1. Decide whether you need it at all.Charcoal and soft pastel: effectively yes, or the work must go straight behind glass and never be handled. Graphite: usually not, unless it is very soft and heavily blended. Coloured pencil: no. Ink and watercolour: no.
2. Choose workable or final.Workable fixative is designed to be drawn over — it leaves a slightly toothy surface for further layers. Final fixative is a heavier film for the completed piece. Using final fixative mid-drawing seals the tooth and makes further work very difficult.
3. Go outside, or somewhere with real air movement.This is not a precaution to skip. The solvent vapour is genuinely harmful in a small room and the overspray coats everything nearby. A garden, a yard or an open garage door with the work at the opening.
4. Test on a scrap of the same drawing and paper.Fixatives vary and papers vary. A test strip tells you how much the tone will darken and whether the paper cockles before you find out on the finished work.
5. Hold the can about 30 centimetres away and keep it moving.Start the spray off the edge of the paper, sweep across, and release off the other edge. Stopping over the work is what produces a dark blotch.
6. Build up several very light coats.Three or four whisper-thin passes, alternating direction, with a minute or two between them. One heavy wet coat dissolves and floats the pigment, which is what makes a drawing go blotchy or grey.
7. Position the work vertically or spray from an angle.A horizontal sheet catches any droplets that fall, and it lets loose charcoal dust be blown around by the propellant. Clip it upright, or at a steep tilt, and spray from the side.
8. Let it dry fully outside before bringing it in.Fifteen minutes at least, longer in cold or damp weather. Bringing a wet-sprayed work indoors puts the remaining solvent into your air.
9. Store the can upright and use it within its life.Invert and spray for a second after use to clear the nozzle. A blocked nozzle spits, and a spit lands as a permanent dark spot.

Tips

• Hairspray is a long-standing substitute and a poor one. It is not archival, it yellows, it goes tacky in humid conditions and it can attract insects. It is fine for a throwaway sketch and nothing else.
• Interleaving with glassine — a smooth, non-absorbent, semi-transparent paper — protects unfixed work in a folder without changing it at all. For anything you value, this is better than fixing.
• Fixative will slightly darken and dull pastel, which is why many pastellists fix only the early layers and leave the final ones unfixed behind glass with a spacer.
• Some fixatives are marketed as archival or acid-free. For work you intend to keep or sell, that is worth the extra cost.

Common mistakes

• Spraying indoors in a spare room with the window open — It is not enough air movement, and the solvent concentration in a small room gets high quickly. Outdoors, or not at all.
• One heavy coat to be sure it is fixed — It saturates the pigment layer, floats it, and dries as a blotchy, darkened, sometimes shiny surface. Light coats, many of them.
• Spraying near a boiler, hob, pilot light or heater — The propellant and solvent are flammable, and an aerosol cloud near an ignition source is a genuine fire risk.
• Fixing a smudged drawing to stop it getting worse — It locks the smudge in permanently. Clean first, then fix.

Questions people ask