Candy Apples on Pastelboard

I'm spending some time working on some new candy apple pieces because my others have sold, which is a good thing. More money for art supplies : ) This piece is for Bristol Art Gallery and will be used in the gallery's advertisement in American Art Collector magazine. For the surface, I am trying Ampersand Pastelbord for the first time. I chose white pastelbord because much of the background is going to stay white. Here are my observations; the pastelbord takes many layers but Prismacolor pencil flakes easily. My white background has red flecks all over it so I may have to add white acrylic paint at the end. The surface is rough and I'm having a bit of trouble getting very smooth pencil to portray the shiny red candy. So I will need to add either harder type of pencils on top layer or use solvent with the Prismacolors so they go on like paint.