Tones fading away

[Pau1Winslow]

When I'm sketching with a soft lead (daler rowney watersoluble) pencil, I spend a long time building up my tones until everything looks just right, say, on a pair of lips.. and then a couple of weeks later after my pages have been opened and closed a lot of times, everything looks way too soft and way lighter and I have such an unbearable itch to start working over old drawings again to recorrect the tones..

Is there anything I can do to stop the dark tones fading? In school we used to use hairspray to stop charcoal from smudging, will this work?

Cheers.

[Elwell]

Workable fixative. Hairspray has added perfumes etc, and can yellow or get sticky over time.

[Pau1Winslow]

Cheers, mate.

Anything else around the house out of curiousity?

[Grief]

yeah work fixative. it runs about $3-5 a can.
use it in a well ventilated area (or outside away from plants)
keep your hand moving to get an even coat of a fine mist.
let it air out for a few minutes before you move it back inside.

that's really basically all.

[J Wilson]

I wonder if a water soluble pencil might have problems with a workable fixative (even though there is no water in it). If you aren't using it for it's water soluable properties I might suggest using a more stable lead.