Video: Purchasing Correct Paper Type for Watercolor Painting

Learn the importance of paper type for watercolor painting and make sure you purchase the correct type of paper for your project in this free video art lesson.

Video Transcript

Hi! I’m John Junger. I do the paintings that we’re going to be talking about, the watercolors. I’m here representing expertvillage.com. In this video, I will discuss types of paper and ways of purchasing different paper. Paper is one of the most important fascists of doing a watercolor. Unfortunately, people will go out and look for price. They find a cheap pad, and it’s cheap generally because it has no rag content or very little rag content. The 100 % rag papers will accept your watercolor, do what you want it to do, and it gives you the option of doing some reworking on it. Cheaper papers will not only attack the watercolor paints themselves, but they’ll turn the colors while you’re working on them, because they’re sulfides getting into the colors. Now, there are some papers with neutral PH. They’re fine to work with. The longevity, I have some suspect that they won’t last as well as 100 % rag paper, which has no wood pulp or other contaminants in it. The paper that I use mostly is 100 % rag; it’s pure cotton. I use a cold press surface, which means that it has some texture, but isn’t rough. There’s rough and there’s also slick. To me, the cold press has a little texture to hold the watercolors as you do washes and stuff, but it doesn’t leave big deep wells of dark color where the color has filled in. You can buy various types of paper with 100 % rag. It’s just a matter of preference. Each one has a little different finish; a little different absorption. If you can find one you like, you probably should stick with it because it’s going to server you well. When you start messing around, going from one paper to the other, it’s kind of always a learning experience.

Purchasing Correct Paper Type for Watercolor Painting

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