Let’s get hot in here! 🔥

Let’s talk about heat mats…. Why? What did you think I was talking about? 🤔

A few communities I’m a part of have been talking about heat mats lately, so I thought I’d do a blog post about it, as for me, they’re an essential part of my colour pencil artist kit, and I urge any other artists, rookie or pro, to get one.

First up - the heat mat itself!

I’m a pretty thrifty person, so I like spending the least amount of money that I can. Now don’t get me wrong, in this industry, you have to spend money in certain areas, like your pencils and surfaces, but there’s nothing wrong with scrimping a bit on other things to enable you to have those luxuries.

I have two heat mats, both the same essentially, but different sizes.

They’re nothing fancy, just from Amazon - which I’m not affiliated with by the way, this is all my honest views.

Now I’ve never actually used any other kind, as I’ve had these two about three years, and never had an issue, so didn’t see the point in shopping about. The larger one is a great size, and they have variable heat controls too.

So…. What’s the point?

I’m waffling, I know, but there is a point to this! Why would you want a heat mat? What value does it bring to your work, other than toasty fingers in winter?

Before I get into it, I only use heat mats with Pastelmat paper or board. I know other artists have great experiences with other surfaces, but I haven’t tested it enough to comment. I have used a heat mat with Bristol Vellum paper, and found it did buckle a bit under the heat. I pretty much only use Pastelmat anyway, so it works out great for me!

So, what value does this add?

Adding heat to your work is a really easy way to blend your pencils, making it perfect for those lower layers. It essentially melts to pencil, allowing it to smush into all those little holes Pastelmat has, and create a nice, even, blend of colour (or colours). It takes a lot of manual effort out of blending. Personally, I love using heat to blend colours that don’t naturally blend - so blending light blue into dark blue is pretty easy, but red to green to yellow, is a lot more challenging. The addition of heat makes that transition a lot easier, and uses a lot less layers that if you didn’t add heat.

Soooo… does it work all the time?

No, definitely not! Adding heat is great for early layers, like:

✏️ Foundations of a skin tone

✏️ Base layers below fur

✏️ Blurred/out of focus areas

You definitely don’t want heat if you’re:

❌ Adding fine details

❌ Want sharp, crisps lines

Adding heat makes making crisp lines very hard, as the pigment smushes around a lot more easily, no matter how sharp and hard your pencil is.

Right, sounds good! So what pencils?

I’m probably not the best person to answer this, as I’m a creature of habit, and stick to the pencils I like. I light Derwent Lightfast and Chromaflow for this technique, as they become so creamy and smooth - it’s a dream! Luminance also work pretty well too. In my experiences, Pablos and Procolour don’t work quite as well, but I don’t use these as often in my work, so it could be that too.

Here’s some examples of using heat in different kinds of work, and hopefully, some of this waffle will make some sense when you see it.