
Strathmore Bristol is excellent for many uses, as it comes in a variety of finishes, weights (plies) and price points. The really good stuff is the 500 series, whether smooth, semi-smooth or plate (smoothest of all with a hard, shiny surface). Today I’m preparing a piece of Semi-Smooth paper for drawing and I wanted to know which side was up with this paper. Most paper has a right and wrong side, sometimes depending on what you’re doing with it. A visit to the Strathmore site reveals that Bristol is designed to have 2 identical working surfaces, top and bottom, and I quote:
“Bristol generally describes a drawing paper that is glued together under pressure to form multi-ply sheets. Bristol sheets provide a stiff, strong surface to work on without the need for mounting. The felt sides of the paper (typically the more desirable working side for the artist) are exposed so there are two workable surfaces in one sheet.”
Shown above is the paper after being “toned” with graphite and ready to begin drawing, next to a piece of plain white paper to show the difference. This is a fun way to work. Any highlights needed are erased from the medium tone of the paper and darks are made with pencils of varying hardness. HB or F is a good place to start. In the photo above you can see the tools I use for the toning process. It’s pretty simple, you get some graphite powder, load up a cloth or wad of clean, soft paper, like paper toweling or even Kleenex, and spread it around. I’m lucky. I have a source of pure graphite powder because I use the drafting-style clutch pencil holders for 2mm leads that have no wood attached. I use the rotary-style lead pointer shown above sitting on its linen cloth I use to wrap it for transport and/or storage to keep the graphite powder IN when I’m not toning paper with it. The lead pointer provides plenty of finely ground graphite, which I would just discard if I didn’t use it to tone paper.
The plan is to procure an almond branch today with at least one blossom open and go from there. The paper is ready and waiting!
The cyclamen leaf study below is an example of the technique. Some artists are obsessive about getting the background gray color even, but I like a little variety there, as long as there are no obvious spots that are rubbings of something that was under the surface, or worse fingerprints! Thus the glove in the photo above. There actually is a bit of a fingerprint in the study below, but it’s very subtle. Can you see it in the lower right? Once you get a print like that in your background, it’s best to STOP rubbing with the graphite in that area because the more you rub graphite into it, the darker and more obvious it will get.
