Thursday, January 21, 2016

Back in the studio testing linen paper

Quite a few years back a commercial printing shop went out of business and I acquired reams of mixed paper for drawing on, printmaking and all round play. So I decided its about time I play with this paper to see how it accepts varied media. The following is Winsor Newton watercolor on 25x23 inch Linen paper. The paper is beautiful, slightly textured which would be great for pencil portraits, but as there is about a one inch pile of it playtime has started. The paper took the water pigment much better than expected. In fact the pigment soaked too well into the paper so I ended up mixing thick pigment fairly dry to get that "pow" strength. 

Play on wednesday led to

Thursday play time. Same theme of bunchberry plants that carpet the forest floor in alberta and BC. A tiny plant pushed to a gigantic size. It was fun, but would I use this paper for watercolor paintings; not likely as it eats up paint. My next test will be to draw on it and test print on the press when plates get designed. So much going on in my head.


I love that the paper is large as I stood at the easel I held the end of the brush loaded with pigment and played with outstretched arm moved in a loose manner. Side by side you can see how the size of the image was pushed bit more today than yesterday.


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