Strathmore

Bristol and Illustration Board provide a stiff, strong surface to work on without the need for mounting. Our boards come in various weights and finishes. Bristol generally describes drawing paper that is pasted together to form multi-ply sheets. Illustration board has 100% cotton drawing paper mounted on both sides of heavyweight board.

Bristol Surfaces:

Smooth: Also known as hot press, has a very satiny, hard finish. This surface is especially good for pen and ink, marker, mechanical layout and airbrush.

Vellum: Also called regular, medium or kid finish, this surface has a tooth or roughness, making it excellent for use with dry media including pencil, colored pencil, charcoal, pastel and oil pastel.

Semi-Smooth: The perfect in-between surface that isn't as smooth as smooth, and not as rough as vellum. The Slightly textured surface is suited for pen and ink tools, pencil, specialty pens and markers.

Plate: A unique, uniformly smooth finish is created on the surface of the sheet through a special process. Sheets of paper are interleaved with highly polished metal plates to make a stack or "book". The “book” is then pressed repeatedly between steel rollers under great pressure, imparting the smoothness of the metal plates to the paper’s surface. This surface is ideal for pen and ink, marker, mechanical layouts and air-brushing.