Experimenting using india ink and graphite on vellum. Vellum is kind of a recent discovery for me. I mean, I knew of it, especially when I was doing a lot of printmaking. Some of the printmakers in the studio were really obsessed with paper, so I heard of vellum, …and cotton rag, and mulberry paper, and abaca, and Rives BFK and Arches and all the choices and lingo that is really kind of wonderful. I think those specific choices that artists make, the paper, ink, paint, ground, size, all of it, is what makes good art so special and individual.
Vellum was originally made from calf skin, but it is supposedly now made from cellulose, although I read that modern vellum has a plastic polymer added to it , so not recycle-able. However it is made, it is translucent and has a silky surface with a microfine tooth. It takes graphite wonderfully although it doesn’t adhered well so very smeary, kind of like a pastel. You have to fix a drawing on vellum with that nasty spray to get pencil to stay put. I’ve been lightly putting a final coat of thin matte medium over it which is tricky. You have to apply the matt medium in one stroke, the second stroke with smear the pencil. …..so this is weird information to know. My head of full of little factoid snippets. It’s a mess in there.