A Great Day to be Flying!
This is a little 7"x 9" quick color test I did a while ago on new material/ working surface we're starting to carry at University Art but are uncertain if we will continue to. The material is not a paper or a fabric but is instead a plastic. It is very thin. Very rigid, it give some of the nastiest paper cuts around, and has a finish similar to a rough drawing paper. It will accept oils, acrylics, without requiring a layer of gesso be applied. It will take water media like watercolors and gouache, pen and ink plus marker, along with traditional dry media like pencil, charcoal, pastel and my favorite color pencil. On top of all this it suppose to be an acid-free archival material meant for long term use.
My opinions. Well I have only tried a few medias with it but so for it has not failed me. It is trickier to draw on compared to traditional surfaces like Bristol board or watercolor paper; however I found it pretty easy to get color pencil down on the surface and I could vigorously rub and blend it with Gamsol. As far as markers are concerned it definitely will take them. In fact it takes them almost to well. Applying my marker underpainting for this piece I could literally watch the color get sucked into the material. This caused the colors to take on a rather subdued pastel-like quality when it was done. However the color did not bleed beyond where I had applied it.
My usual tricks for using electric eraser to do lifting of color worked, and applying gouache over the finished color pencil was no problem. All told I'm willing to experiment with more.
The subject matter is just some random image that went wandering through my head while I was getting ready to use the material. It does have a nice almost story book quality to it.
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