Paper based work

 

"When animals play" acrylic and pastel on paper 33" x 24" 

"Shifting space"  acrylic and oil bar on paper 33" x 24"

Working on paper feels to me quite a bit different to working on canvas or board. I think it's the idea that it's more disposable whereas a lot of work goes into making and preparing a stretched canvas for instance and if you have a lot of texture on the surface it's often not re-usable. So, paper makes  me feel braver and take a few more risks.  

I used Spectrafix to fix the soft red pastel in the first painting above and because this was heavy water colour paper it caused the pastel to bleed in a way that contributed to the sense of the painting.  However the paper "cockled" a bit when drying so I got a sheet of clean glassine and laid it carefully over the work and pressed the whole thing down with heavy books. The day after it came up perfect - no cockles.