Your pastel paintings must be protected or you risk having them smudged. Even spray fixatives will not prevent all smudges and scrapes. The best protection, of course, is to have your painting matted and framed. Pastel paintings must be matted, to prevent the painted surface from coming into contact with the glass.

You can have your painting framed at a frame shop, but it's simple enough to do yourself, particularly if you buy the 'build-a-frame' frame sides that come in every whole-inch length imaginable. That is, you would have trouble finding lengths to make a frame that was 11 3/4 by 11 3/4, but easy to make one 4x11 or 5x9. Pre-made frames are available in a variety of standard sizes as well; typical sizes are 4x6, 5x8, 11x14 and 18x24.

You can also buy precut mats, or have your mats cut to your specifications at a frame shop, or purchase a set of mat cutters and cut your own. Mat cutters come in two varieties, to make straight cuts and bevelled edge cuts. Bevelled edges on the interior edge of the mat is fairly standard in framing.

There are two main differences between framing a pastel painting and framing anything else.

1.) Do not use plexiglass to cover your art. Yes, it's lighter and won't break as easily as regular glass will. Unfortunately, it also holds a static charge. If the plexiglass gets charged, it will, over time, pull the grains of pigment off the ground and you will wind up with a fuzziness obscuring your art, as well as losing any fine details you may have layered on top of the painting.

2.) Build a 'stand-off' into your mat. That is, you do not want your painting to be flush up against the bevelled mat. Any grains of pastel that will settle off your painting will be caught in the bevel and make a grimy rim at the bottom of your painting. Instead, glue a few strips of waste matting on the back of your cut mat. (This is why I recommend doing your own mat cutting; then you know it's done right.) These waste strips will create a small gap, the width of the mat, between the paper or other ground and the visible mat. Any grains of pastel that fall will vanish behind the mat and keep the visible part of your painting and mat clean.