A First Look at the New Warm Mist Wallis Paper

'Slipping into Evening'              8x10            pastel on Wallis Warm Mist            ©Karen Margulis
sold

 I have become a hoarder. Like many others I have been saving my last small piece of Wallis Belgian Mist paper. It is on my paper shelf and every once in awhile I will pull it out and think about painting on it. But I don't.  I put it back saving it for another worthy idea.

I have found other papers to love. I have moved on. It was a good relationship while it lasted and I managed to convince myself that I didn't need it.

And then there was a twinkling of a light at the end of the tunnel. A tease. A post on the Wallis Corporation's facebook page last month. Finally an explanation for the absence of Wallis paper. And a glimmer of hope for it's return. And an offer....a small quantity of the new Wallis Warm Mist paper was available directly to artists. But alas I found the post too late and the paper was sold out. I wasn't meant to have it I guess.

And then a coveted piece of the new Wallis was given to me by an artist friend Sharon Lewis. Thank you Sharon! I held onto it for a week before I decided to give it a try.

The Warm Mist Wallis is on top. A piece of the original Belgian Mist in on the bottom.

I liked it. My pastels liked it. It was warmer which I liked,  but most importantly it seemed to perform like the old Wallis. I will buy more when it becomes available. My favorite use for Wallis Belgian Mist was always for studies...plein air and daily paintings when I didn't want to do an underpainitng. I loved the tone of this paper peeking through my layers. It allowed for more direct painting. I missed it for those times. 

For those of you who aren't on Facebook I have copied and pasted the post dated August 18 from The Wallis Corporation's facebook page:

"As some of you know there has been a ridiculous consecutive sequence of errors in the production of Wallis paper that resulted in repeated shortages over the last few years. These included shipping damage, hidden materials flaws, subtle coating flaws, cutting errors, etc. Each of these caused us to fall a little further behind in production, since the process takes 2-4 months per run. Late last year we took steps to improve the overall process in both time and quality by gaining access to some of the newest and most technologically advanced coating equipment in the U.S. Unfortunately it turned out that the equipment did not work well with the archival materials with which we make our products and the majority of that run came out damaged and unusable.

The run was a test of new color, (a warmer ground version of our Belgian Mist we are calling Warm Mist), and it was meant to be immediately followed by each of our regular products you are familiar with. The subsequent runs, of course, were canceled.

The good news is we do have a quantity of the test run that is perfect. It uses the same Belgian-linen colored brown grit as our Belgian Mist product, but with a tiny bit of Maroon Oxide added to the glue underneath, as opposed to the Brown Oxide used in our Belgian Mist paper. We were running the test color because many artists have inquired about a warmer version of Wallis paper for years."

Karen's note: the limited quantity is currently sold out September 29 2014.