Testing papers for transparency

Transparency tests. The tests are laid on a piece of black and a piece of white paper. Each is coated with Golden mat medium front and back up to about the halfway point. The papers are: 1. An unknown paper recommended, but discontinued. I have a stack. 2. Calligraphy paper. 3. Abaca from Talas. 4. Wet strength tissue. 5. Architect's tracing paper (Dick Blick calls it Canary Sketching and Tracing.) 6. White Kozo from Hiromi. 7. An old pad of forms used for dispatching or tracing trains. 8. Colors of the Rainbow tissue paper. (the color is Kraft) Drawings on #1 thru 6 are with .005 micron black. #7 and 8 are with 01 Microns. The image will enlarge.

 I like to layer papers when I collage, I want the papers to be somewhat transparent or translucent. My drawings are often done on architect's tracing paper.  I coat it with Golden mat medium to make sure the ink doesn't smear in the collage process. Then I collage the drawing to the substrate. The mat medium does help to make the papers translucent. 

Transparency test. Colors of the rainbow tissue paper in soft ivory. The figure was drawn on the paper, coated with mat medium, cut out and collaged to eco-dyed paper. The soft ivory pretty closely matches the substrate paper. The brand Colors of the Rainbow is archival and comes in many colors. The paper is not strong when wet.

I have been testing papers lately, looking for other fairly transparent papers in tones I like. I tested all the likely looking papers I could find in my studio. After drawing on each sample I coated it front and back with the mat medium. Below are some drawings and collages I did to further test some of the papers I liked.

Old train dispatch or routing paper with drawing. Coated with  mat medium, cut out and collaged to eco-dyed substrate. I don't really know how to describe this pad. It's clearly associated with trains. I would love to find more, but I assume it's not archival. 

The figure was drawn on Abaca paper from Talas. I believe it's 9 gsm. This is the thinnest paper I tested. It works very well, although it's a little hard to drawn on. It's also my favorite for having the paper disappear. I think it would be beautiful for mark making.

All these tests were inspired by Sally Hirst. She has a blog post here about making papers transparent. And a YouTube video here. Her process is different from mine - she spritzes her papers before coating with medium. And she uses a different medium. Sally does test an even thinner Abaca which has to be ordered from Etsy. I found that too thin to draw on, but it would be great for mark making.