Paper made from stones!

A friend of mine had a new product for me to test out that she had just received from Cheap Joe's.
It's a new kind of paper for artists and is made without using trees. Terraskin is totally fabricated from stone.

This from their website:

"TerraSkin is a combination of Calcium Carbonate (>75%) with a small quantity (<25%) of non-toxic resin (PE – Polyethylene) to create a strong sustainable substrate. Together these materials create a substrate that is both water and tear resistant!"

I've noticed that because of the fiberless quality of TerraSkin, it does't absorb paint like traditional paper and has a unique texture and feel. Images stay much crisper and cleaner because the paint sits on the surface. Color can be lifted very easily and areas can be wiped off and repainted.

Here are my first attempts using acrylics on Terraskin!

Acrylic paint on Terraskin paper available from
cheapjoes.com 

This one is in process, But I loved the way the paint created the bubbles on the right. I have chalked in 3 figures and I'm not sure if I'll keep them.

Now I get it!

I was lucky enough to assist at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts for Lisa Pressman. The class was a week long and very fun. She is an artist working in cold wax, oil and encaustic from New Jersey. I loved her teaching style and her work. Please check out her website  lisapressman.net, The class was painting with encaustic and my job was to mix medium and lend a hand when necessary. I also had the privilege of working on my own paintings in encaustic, as well as cold wax, and will post the "in process" works in the next post.

For now I am very excited about the cold wax and oil process. After Lisa gave me a personal demo and shared her materials and knowledge with me I feel I have a much better understanding of how it works. Letting the work dry was the only challenge to me as I  love to work fast. Working on many of them at one time helps. Below are some in process works that I did during the week that I can't wait to work on and finish. These are STARTS and need many more layers and fine tuning before they will be paintings! Most are on 12x12 cradled encaustic board from Ampersand and have a nice surface. They come in different size cradle depths.

The scratching and texturing was done with a sharp skewer and the layers are put on with

a print making brayer or squeegee. Revealing all the colors underneath is the most fun!