Hey! I just started with papier mache, I have been making these cool 3 dimensional abstract cityscape paintings, I take a large piece of cardboard, then glue rectangular prisms on it made of cereal box card for the buildings and I use another piece of cardboard for the ground, underneath the rectangles... then I use papier mache on it and I use a "monster bone" finish which I learned about from Creaturiste's blog, I can create lots of texture with it. Anyway then I paint it with acrylics. They look really cool, you can hang them on the wall and put a bunch of them together to make a metropolis.

Well I like them so much that I want to try making them using all non-acidic materials so that it lasts forever. My (highschool) art teacher likes them too but she said that they will ruin since I am using acidic materials and she said if you want to sell them (what? they're not that good lol) that I should use archival quality stuff. So that's what got me thinking about it. I've looked on the internet and I had a hard time finding non acidic cardboard but I did. It sure is expensive though. I also found non acidic tissue paper and I'm wondering if tissue paper would be okay to use for the papier mache strips. I use coffee filters and brown paper towel usually.

Also I'm wondering about the adhesive I use, does that have to be non acidic too? I use wallpaper paste. And I'm wondering if the monster bone finish is problematic too, which is made of joint compound, water and welbond glue. What is an alternative to these things, if they are not suitable for a lasting art piece (can I use gesso instead of monster bone - I heard it was bad for papier mache)? I am a perfectionist a bit! Actually if I do make these for real I will have to sell them otherwise I will be poor, buying all these fancy materials haha! I wish people would think of papier mache as art and not only as something to make kiddy crafts from. Anyway thanks for your help I really appreciate it!