Smooth Bristol is actually a lot more smooth than a lot of people would like – most of the CP artists I know who use Bristol would prefer the vellum finish.

Paper with very little tooth would mean that your CP can’t grab on to it beyond the first 1 or 2 layers, and would compromise the depth / saturation of the results.

If you don’t like the grainy look you need to keep putting on layers. Once you got the right colour you can then use either a paint thinner (e.g. OMS) that would melt the binder of the pencil and allow pigment to get into the tooth of the paper; or a blender stick to burnish. To get a smooth finish it normally takes me anywhere between 10 – 20 layers if I use only CPs

If you want to experiment with paper, try Terraskin which is a synthetic “paper” made of stone. It is ultra smooth. I have done only one cp piece on it, but I quite liked it.
Vena

I love my polychromas and love the feel of the way they glide beautifully on Canson Cartridge 110gsm. I can really push down to get a very deep effect. However, I am in Australia and I have noticed from posts that ‘cartridge paper’ is not a universal term.

Thanks you for the recommendation. Cartridge is a term used here, in England. I will try some and found it on Amazon.

[url]https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canson-1557-including-cartridge-drawing/dp/B0018DCKWO[/url]

Hi ah, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do..
This eagle was done with polychromas on this Canson Cartridge 110 gsm. It was my very first go with polychromas. I cant tell you how easy it was as the polychroma pencils just glided on.. But It needed more than one covering.

Good luck, I hope you love its effect also.

cheers.

Thanks, Merriweather. I will let you know how it goes. The colours in your bird are lovely.

Thanks for the advice, tiago.

Thanks, Delo. I will take a look at previous posts.

C A Grain is a wonderful paper, it is the similar to Bristol Vellum, but with a better texture in my opinion. It is one of my favorite papers to use with my colored pencils, you can apply many layers and get good color depth and vibrancy. The tooth of the paper is very attractive, but if you want an actual smooth finish it will allow for such with sharp pencil points used to get that tooth filled. Colored pencils are generally considered a “slow” medium, take your time and use color layers to build interesting color variety and depth. A finished work in colored pencil on such paper can take hours to complete, but it is well worth the time spent in my opinion.