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More watercolour experiments...
Monday, 3 October 2011 05:59 pmI have a total of no less than eight paper types in my art cupboard.
Some of them are ruled out for the comic because they are really bad quality. I bought them so as to mess with them, but looking back, they are so bad that the mess I make with them doesn't teach me whether or not a project will look good on better paper. So, children: don't do as I did and buy cheap paper. You won't use it anyway.
Some of them are ruled out for the comic because they are too expensive. Much though I love my Hot-Pressed Arches (100% cotton), at €40 for 20 A3(ish) pages, it doesn't exactly come cheap. Drawing The Darkest Hour alone would cost me €120 in paper. Ouch. It's just like me to adore the most expensive paper that Arches produces, isn't it...
Some of them are ruled out because they are so %$µ# absorbent :(. I'm looking at you, Fabriano and Lana!
This basically leaves three candidates:
- Canson Montval (€27 for 20 sheets 32x41 cm - 100% cellulose)
- Bockingford St Cuthbert's Mill, Cold-Pressed (NOT) (€13,55 for 12 sheets 31x41 cm - 100% wood pulp)
- Daler-Rowney Aquafine, Cold-Pressed (NOT) (€8 for 12+4 sheets 30x42 cm - 100% wood pulp)
Below are experiments with two of these:
Canson Montval
For some reason, I didn't expect to like this paper, but I found it to be quite all right. It is very smooth and pleasant to ink on. It's not ridiculously absorbent and I can lift paint without much trouble. Mind you, sometimes I got the feeling that parts of the paper didn't absorb the paint enough - some spots seemed to resist the pigment, like when you use watercolour on a paper that is too smooth for it.
Please forgive the quality of the pictures; I sketched and painted them quite casually. I was only interested in the reaction of the paper.
Bockingford St Cuthbert's Mill
See: this paper acted the way I expect a watercolour paper to behave. It's just ... nice. It has more texture than the Canson paper, but less than the Daler-Rowney. It's nice to ink on. It takes the pencils and rubbing in stride. It doesn't mind a good wash. I like it! Rather ironically, this is actually the first paper I ever bought. I seem to have fallen out of love with it somehow - maybe because I associate it with my early and even-more-unsuccessful-than-usual attempts at watercolour painting?
The obligatory accident in this picture is that I started washing before all my ink lines were entirely dry. The fact that the paper doesn't absorb so quickly is an advantage for paint, but I need to get used to it for ink... Daler-Rowney has this, too - there, the ink seems to come off anyway, as it does with my Arches Grain Torchon.
This gent is Cai, by the way :). He's not ... quite ... 'done' yet. But you get an idea of where I am going with him.
Okay. It's going to be Bockingford or Daler-Rowney.
Any suggestions for other papers I should really try? They need to be available in A3(ish) size.
Some of them are ruled out for the comic because they are really bad quality. I bought them so as to mess with them, but looking back, they are so bad that the mess I make with them doesn't teach me whether or not a project will look good on better paper. So, children: don't do as I did and buy cheap paper. You won't use it anyway.
Some of them are ruled out for the comic because they are too expensive. Much though I love my Hot-Pressed Arches (100% cotton), at €40 for 20 A3(ish) pages, it doesn't exactly come cheap. Drawing The Darkest Hour alone would cost me €120 in paper. Ouch. It's just like me to adore the most expensive paper that Arches produces, isn't it...
Some of them are ruled out because they are so %$µ# absorbent :(. I'm looking at you, Fabriano and Lana!
This basically leaves three candidates:
- Canson Montval (€27 for 20 sheets 32x41 cm - 100% cellulose)
- Bockingford St Cuthbert's Mill, Cold-Pressed (NOT) (€13,55 for 12 sheets 31x41 cm - 100% wood pulp)
- Daler-Rowney Aquafine, Cold-Pressed (NOT) (€8 for 12+4 sheets 30x42 cm - 100% wood pulp)
Below are experiments with two of these:
Canson Montval
For some reason, I didn't expect to like this paper, but I found it to be quite all right. It is very smooth and pleasant to ink on. It's not ridiculously absorbent and I can lift paint without much trouble. Mind you, sometimes I got the feeling that parts of the paper didn't absorb the paint enough - some spots seemed to resist the pigment, like when you use watercolour on a paper that is too smooth for it.
Please forgive the quality of the pictures; I sketched and painted them quite casually. I was only interested in the reaction of the paper.
Bockingford St Cuthbert's Mill
See: this paper acted the way I expect a watercolour paper to behave. It's just ... nice. It has more texture than the Canson paper, but less than the Daler-Rowney. It's nice to ink on. It takes the pencils and rubbing in stride. It doesn't mind a good wash. I like it! Rather ironically, this is actually the first paper I ever bought. I seem to have fallen out of love with it somehow - maybe because I associate it with my early and even-more-unsuccessful-than-usual attempts at watercolour painting?
The obligatory accident in this picture is that I started washing before all my ink lines were entirely dry. The fact that the paper doesn't absorb so quickly is an advantage for paint, but I need to get used to it for ink... Daler-Rowney has this, too - there, the ink seems to come off anyway, as it does with my Arches Grain Torchon.
This gent is Cai, by the way :). He's not ... quite ... 'done' yet. But you get an idea of where I am going with him.
Okay. It's going to be Bockingford or Daler-Rowney.
Any suggestions for other papers I should really try? They need to be available in A3(ish) size.
