As you know, the painting surface I normally work on is watercolor paper. I decided, however, to stretch my self on my last piece by using a pumice primed gator board as my painting surface. What a challenge. Today, I am taking another step into the unknown, I will be using "Pastelbord" by Ampersand for my next piece. I tried this board recently during a workshop I took with Claudia Seymour and was very pleasantly surprised at the results.
Pastelbord has a fine sanded surface that is capable of holding many layers of pastel. And, if you are familiar with my work you will know that I am a layering fool! The wonderful thing about this surface is that while I can continue to have my subtle layers of color, I can also have a painting that is pumped with color intensity,
which I am crazy about. You can see what I mean with this still life I created at the workshop.I have to say that trying new mediums and papers is not what I inherently like to do. It's much more comfortable doing what I know and using the materials I am accustomed to using. If I had not forced myself to stretch, though, and I do mean forced myself, my paintings would not be enjoying the color or richness some of these supports offer.
So, I encourage you to try something new. How sad it would be if your work could be transformed by a single sheet of paper and you weren't adventurous enough to try it.
What materials have you tried recently that made a positive affect on your paintings? I'd love to hear about it.
