Fisher paper!

Why haven't I used it before????
So everyone was raving about Fisher paper in the Pet Portraits forum and I figured that I needed to try it.

As you do, I had great fun buying some stock and then carefully put it away, because I had commissions, study assignments, art college assignments not to mention other work stuff.....you know what it's like.

My reward for finishing my penultimate OU assignment was that I would have some time to 'play' with the Fisher.

A couple of posts back you might recall this delightful shot:

This weekend I had 2 days of bliss at the Coontica show in Rickmamsworth and started on the piece - on Fisher...

So the verdict:

Well,  Fisher paper, for those of you who haven't tried it, is simply 800 grit sandpaper (it says so on the back)

I had tried Pastelmat and really didn't like it, so becuase Fisher seemed similar I guess I was a little reticent.  I'm used to working on velour and I love the finish.

I got set up and sketched the outline.  Then I started on the pastel - blimey you only need to touch the paper and half the pencil is worn away on to it.

I can completely understand why anyone who comes from Fisher paper finds velour difficult or a chore. Compared to Fisher, it is quite hard work getting the colour onto the velour - at times you really have to scrub.

What surprised me the most is the speed which which the piece started to develop.

Although I wasn't sure for the first hour, I very quickly got used to the change in technique and now I'm a complete convert. I love the ease with which you can render detail on this paper.

As ever I started with the eyes and then the rest of the facial features.  At first I wasn't sure about the 'painterly' look that I was getting, but I soon got used to it and now I'd even say I prefer it!

When I ordered the Fisher I also bought the blenders. Basically they are cut up pieces of cork matting! Have to say after the first couple of rubs I have binned them. I found that they left brown marks on the paper and are completely the wrong shape to blend fine detail, so I stuck to my blending stubs which worked perfectly.And this is where this post ends - an almost finished tiny Siamese kitty....

The cat show where I started this piece was at the Royal Masonic School for girls - a very swanky boarding school in Rickmansworth.  Such a lovely building, but thearea that I was placed in didn't have such good lighting, so the pictures are a little yellow cast (even though I had set up my camera for flourescent light!)  After I had blended the head colour a little, I moved on to the body.  They are such cute tiny chaps, you can almost feel the little bones under that thin fur ;0)

You can see a bit of the difference here between blended and un-blended:

Next post 2 more kitties completed