Long in the tooth - Reducing and restoring paper tooth

Ever heard the expression a paper has more tooth than another well that simply refers to the texture of the paper, (also referred to as the grain) if you run your hand over something like pastel matt you will find it is far grainer than a watercolour paper.

The tooth of a paper plays an important role in how much pastel, graphite or coloured pencil you can get on the surface, the more layers you apply the more material goes into the tooth. until you can no longer add any more the paper has become a slick surface to work with.

Ways to reduce slick paper

With certain mediums like coloured pencils the tooth is filled quicker due to the wax in them, waxed based pencils include Caran D'Ache Pablo, Caran D'Ache Illuminance and Prismacolor, you could try using oil based pencils like Derwent lightfast or Faber Castell Polychromos which have more pigment and less wax so you get the colour without as much pressure or layers as the wax isn't contributing to the build up.

Working with a lighter hand helps too. you see the harder you push down the more you flatten the tooth, pressing down with more pressure should be reserved for the final highlights or whiskers of the piece. If you do burnish your artwork (the colourless blender provided with some coloured pencils) leave that to the very end and this pushes down the tooth.

My preferred method is to use a solvent (my go to is the pencil blend by zest it) the solvent thins the layers so you get less build up so more colour and less of the binding agent such as wax and therefore retain more of the peaks and troughs that are the tooth of the matter (sorry not sorry). Other artists use rubbing alcohol as solvents require ventilation.

Ways to add more tooth

Workable fixatives for pastels, charcoal, coloured pencils and graphite can be sprayed on to add a little more texture but this doesn't work as well on highly toothed surfaces such as pastel matt. Brush and pencil have created a product called touch up texture and this works very well, simply shake the bottle and use the little brush to apply, wait for it to dry and you have a little more grain to go at.

I suggest you try out different papers for yourself so you can feel the texture differences and try them with the different dry mediums you have, it is worth while trying new blending agents like solvents too. Spoiler alert I have found a new coloured pencil blender I am going to try and review on here for all you lovely people.

Have a great week and don't forget to let you creativity run wild! (just don't go running down the street naked you'll get arrested).

Vicky x