'Silver Lake' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis available $150 |
I have a little song stuck in my head. It goes way back to my Girl Scout Days. Maybe you know it.
"Make new friends but keep the old. One is Silver and the other's Gold"
It came to mind as I worked on today's painting. I am working on an old friend paper.....Wallis Belgian Mist sanded pastel paper. It used to be my 'Go To' paper. I used both the Belgian Mist color and the white. If you've been painting with pastels awhile then you know Wallis paper. You may miss it or you may have stashes of it somewhere. (see below for the latest update on the paper)
I have been using and enjoying Uart paper for the past couple of years. It is now my Go To paper and I am quite happy with it. But when an artist recently contacted me wishing to sell some Wallis she found at an estate sale I jumped at the chance! It would be so much fun to play with an old friend!
I am cutting down my bog pieces so I have more to play with! |
I was able to purchase 5 sheets of Belgian Mist in 18x24. They were a bit curled on the edges but otherwise in great shape. I cut one sheet down to some 8x10's and used one for today's painting. I used my favorite starting technique on Wallis: a dry wash with Nupastels.
It was so much fun working on the paper. It brought back some great memories! I have stories about this paper!! Ask me sometime! I do love my golden friends!
Information found on the Sieraa Pastel Society website:
Wallis Paper update from Kitty Wallis
I wanted to let you and everyone else in the Sierra Pastel Society know what has been going on with Wallis Paper. We’re still trying to find a manufacturing site that will meet our standards for quality and is able to use all archival materials. The facility we had been using for the last several years had slowly been deteriorating in the quality of the material it produced for us, resulting in larger and larger portions of each run that we had to throw away. It was adding more and more to the expense of providing Wallis paper to artists and was going to result in significant price increases if we continued production there. Since we stopped manufacturing Wallis paper there, another company has started using them to produce sanded paper for pastelists, but we expect they will face the same problems we walked away from.
Our most recent manufacturing run was at a new facility with very modern equipment, but unfortunately that equipment was not entirely compatible with our archival materials and resulted in a loss of about 80% of the paper that was made. We do have some perfect paper from that run available, in the new Warm Mist color, but nothing in larger sheets.
So please let your society members know that we are still working on finding a facility that will allow us to produce Wallis paper with the quality and archival properties that you have all come to expect. In the meantime, we do have both sizes of pads available in Warm Mist. Warm Mist is very similar to our Belgian Mist, but with a maroon oxide undertone rather than the brown oxide undertone you’re familiar with in the Belgian Mist.
Here’s what we have available and the prices. Please share this with your members through Facebook, email, or whatever you generally use.
12″ x 18″ Warm Mist Pad, 8 sheets, shipped in 3-packs
3 pads – $114, free shipping
9″ x 12″ Warm Mist sheets, shipped in 45 packs
(Equivalent to 10 pads + one extra sheet per pad)
45 sheets – $100, free shipping
Free shipping applies in the continental U.S., of course.
Also, please let your members know they can keep up with any updates, ask questions, or see what other Wallis users and societies have to say by liking our Wallis Facebook page at facebook.com/WallisArchival.
And if they want to keep up on the latest development in Kitty’s art, they can find me and friend me atfacebook.com/Kitty.Wallis.
Thanks!
Kitty Wallis
****Latest update on the Facebook page is there is a month or so wait for any of the warm mist pads. It is recommended that you check the Facebook page for updates.
2 comments:
Thank you for the update on Wallis paper. I miss it much! I just ordered a sample pack of Pastel Premier paper from Dakota Arts and will see how that compares.
That's great, she's still working on finding a place to manufacture it. I'm glad it's not gone forever. It's often a bit too much tooth for me but when I want something layered beyond reason, there's nothing better than Wallis paper.
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