Experimenting with mixed media on watercolor paper

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch 140 lb cold press watercolor paper 

I'm trying other surfaces. I just bought some Canson Art Board, which is Arches watercolor paper mounted to what appears to be mat board,  but I didn't want to use it until I experimented first. So I did this one on a similar unmounted watercolor paper. This painting started with gesso followed by drips of high flow acrylics and stencils. I also wanted to try using clear gesso as a ground for pastels.  It worked Ok but my attempt to 'fix' the pastels with matte medium wasn't to my liking. As I suspected might happen,  the pastel pigment was darkened by the medium.  I ended up augmenting the pastels and medium with fluid acrylics. The pastel definitely added to the intensity of the colors.