As I came across some velour paper on Sunday in my studio, I quickly got a piece, sat down and got back in tune with it's qualities. Talk about creating soft pastels that look like butter! Years ago, I did many animal pastels using it, as it really lends itself to 'fur'. I was reminded of how little 'dusting' occurred while working with your pastels. One thing you can't do is erase, blend, or over scumble an area, it ruins the surface. As far as it's archival quality, I recently acquired a "returned" velour surface artpiece I did probably 25 years ago. It was interesting to note that the pastel was still on the surface as if I had just finished it. Even though it had been out of it's frame and laid around in different spots, it was not smeared...the only thing I noticed was a tiny bit of yellowing to the reverse side of the paper, which means to me that it isn't completely 'acid-free', however, I was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the piece. Nothing says enough to me about a paper, other than my own test of time. I have had a black and white 'kindergarten' photo of my husband, just crying to be drawn in color. He was just as cute then as he is now! LOL.
