Ok, so...when in doubt and needing to experiment, doodle a dragon head.

This is actually colored pencil on a fine-sandpaper type of pastel ground. Like, it's gritty but not overly so. It still eats colored pencil like crazy, but, it's not as bad as it could be.

I would have loved to do more blending, but didn't want to push my luck.

So, I actually like what this is capable of. I laid down the color and went over with an odorless paint thinner for blending and it got a nice paint like effect going. I don't think it's suitable for many layers of colored pencil, but....I may do more with this as I don't much care for this ground for pastel.