Could you lay the painting flat and mask off and spray the area where you want the glitter with an archival spray adhesive and then sprinkle on the glitter? Another idea, honey has been used in the past as a binder in pastels, so maybe use honey?

My wife has a glitter “spritz” thingy. She is a big cardmaker/scrapbooker. Ive used it before on backgrounds, small pump the size of a pen. She had a gold, and silver color. So, check suppliers to scrapbooking and cardmaking…..and they are pretty good about using archival products.

Actually, she says you can make your own easily. Get small travel size spray bottle, fill 3/4 with 90% rubbing alcohol, and add 2-3 drops of glitter paint (whatever color you want), and shake to mix.

If you want a glitter effect that’s subtle but powerful, there’s a nice archival pastel product you can use. Coarse White or Black Pearlescent Medium Pan Pastel is glitter, it gives a beautiful glitter effect. It is white or black, tinting it takes using another Pan Pastel. But you could use that in your specific glitter area mixed with other Pan Pastels to get the right hues, and it will look like you pasted glitter on the painting. Then just work around the Pan Pastels area with sticks.

Take a look at the upper area of this piece, I did it with the Coarse black medium to get a dark mix over red and violet, but I laid it on pretty heavy. Treated it like black. How much you use and how much color you mix in will take a bit of experiment. White does tint what it’s used with. Conceivably you could mix White or Black Coarse Pearlescent Medium with the Colorless Blender too in order to get a more translucent application.

Depending on whether it’s on a dark area or a light one, use Black or White Coarse Pearlescent Medium for glitter. This stuff is wonderful.

Alternative, if you want to use that Diamond Dust glass glitter and adhere it archivally with something clear, consider getting a bottle of SpectraFix casein based fixative concentrate. Someone on a past thread was underpainting using the undiluted Concentrate to create a rock hard surface. Try sticking it onto something with that. SpectraFix goes with pastels well and is a pretty sticky stuff. It should work. I’d trust that more than glues. Basically get it wet and shake the glitter into it heavily, then let it dry.

Both of those are archival artists’ products rather than something intended for journals or ephemeral decorations. I like the idea of glass glitter, it’d last a lot better than the cheap stuff.

If you are going to use a fixative on the piece, you might also try some of the “glitters” usually sold with polymer clays. There are many different colors, and textures. I don’t know if they’d adhere without some kind of a fixative.

Rob – those new Pan Pastels look glorious. I saw them on DB, and was wondering how they’d look. THANK YOU AGAIN for being SUCH a generous teacher. suzy