Once dry mounted onto foam core I keep the border area surrounding the paper clean by covering it in newsprint. The newsprint surround also gives me a place to test colors without permanently marking the border area.
Keeping the support clean…
I use 3M’s low to medium tack painter’s tape to attach the newsprint to the edge of the pastel paper, overlapping it by 1/8” to 1/4”. I use a bone folder (an old credit card works as well) to press the tape onto the paper.
Newsprint surround now ready for testing color…
The area surrounding the work can now be used for preliminary mark making and color testing.
Near finished painting with tape and newsprint paper removed…
Because the border surrounding the painting is still clean I am better able to determine if the painting is finished.
Coming up next: follow up tutorial on creating a finished painting from a drawing which does not have a background…
I work from live models to create drawings usually completed in under 30 minutes. These may or may not have background information which the finished painting will need. I use different strategies to create a full composition. In the follow up blog post I’ll demonstrate how I created background interest to complete this work.