Monday, August 29, 2016

STONE PAPER?

Several years ago I heard of paper made from stone.  I think Jeanette Jobson was working on it, or had tried it.  Now you can easily find it in the art supply catalogs.  It's called Terraskin paper. 



I bought some sheets many months ago and played with it using acrylic inks.  Now I'm just using watercolor on it.  

These pieces are cut down from a full sheet (a full sheet is larger than 22 x 30 inches but I cut the large sheets down to that size so I can pin it to my Gatorboard) - the excess pieces are long so I cut them in half, giving me 2 pieces that are 7.5 x 14 inches.  A nice size to play with.

Little landscapes without drawing (you don't have to draw because you can lift back to white if you want.  I like the way the granulating colors work on this stuff (which is like Yupo but not as slick and thin) - you can see dots of granulation where the pigment separates.

I like to let the color dry a bit and then run my finger over areas, creating some texture and lines.  You can add colored watercolor pencils to the piece, too.  I imagine you could do anything on this "paper" that works on regular watercolor paper - but drawing on it with a sharp pencil will cause indents in the TerraSkin and that's not a good thing.  



I think you would probably be wise to spray seal the paintings once you are happy with them, just to protect them from rewetting and smearing.

In order to get darks, you have to stop lifting and fiddling with the color, but sometimes you get some nice shapes and edges by just rubbing the drying pigment with your fingers.  


I bought my paper from Amazon (which, I think, gets it directly from the manufacturer here 
but you can order smaller sheets (10 in all, each sheet 20-28 I think) from DickBlick.com now.  Check out here if you're interested.


My only question?  Why not call it TerraStone instead of TerraSkin?  


And that 22 x 30" sheet is still pinned to a block of Gatorboard, waiting for me to do something interesting with it...





5 comments:

Sadami said...

Hi, Rhonda, thank you for the lovely paintings and the interesting information with humour. Cheers, Sadami

Jennifer Rose said...

the paintings look nice :) I've wanted to try this since Jeanette was working on it, but it cost way too much for me when I don't even know if I will use it all that much. If I ever go back and visit canada I will have to see if I can find it there or order it before hand

the name makes me think earth skin, I think the other title would have fitted better with the product

Alice Jo Webb said...

Wow, you got great textures on these. I've played a bit with Yupo, but had never even heard of this stuff before. May have to give it a whirl...

RH Carpenter said...

Thank you, Sadami, for stopping by and commenting :)

Jennifer Rose, sorry about the cost - they do make journals now in the TerraSkin and I think it comes from Blick or maybe another art supply place locally? Worth checking out if you want to work small (the journals are small).

Alice Jo, they are always making new things artists are using! ha ha We can't keep up - but I like it more than YUPO which is just too slick and thin for me...of course, the TerraSkin has to be bought in large lots so...maybe think about it and try the journals they have online right now first?

Jennifer Rose said...

I didn't know you could get sketchbooks. Looked on ebay and still not cheap but might get one in the future when the student loan comes in :)