How to Select Watercolor Paper

Series Summary

Painting is the art of using a pigmented medium to create a picture of reality filtered through the imagination, senses, emotions and life experiences. Artists the world over have multiplied the uses of painting as a vital mode of human expression, whether recording history, retelling myth and legend, expressing religious fervor or exploring the unknown. From early history to the present humans have been striving to graphically represent the world. In this free video series, an artist discusses several painting and drawing tips. Learn about choosing watercolor paper, whether in sheet form or in block form. Find out how to choose the right watercolor and oil paints, and how to find the right brushes for a painting project. Get tips on organizing art supplies and start painting in the studio or in the great outdoors.

Video Transcript

"Hello, let's talk about water color papers. You wonder how many different kinds of paper there can be. It's just water color on paper right? Well not exactly. And let's have a look at some of the different kinds of paper that are available to water color artist. First of all most people are going to use 140 pound paper, often by a foreign maker. This is 140 pound Arches paper; A-r-c-h-e-s which the French would say arch. And you can see that this is a full sheet that has deckled edges. When we work in full sheet, this is the size that they would refer to their also double elephants. And I'll show you some smaller sizes. This is a half sheet in a much heavier paper. These are both cold pressed papers. 140 of these, a ream of these will weigh 140 pounds but a ream of these will weigh 300 pounds and you can see the difference in the paper. There's another kind of paper called hot press as verses this cold press paper that I've shown you. And you can see how much smoother the surface of that paper is. It's almost glassy and the paint sits on it differently. It doesn't absorb. You could pour a half a gallon of water practically on a 300 pound paper. On this it would tend to sit much more and be less absorbent. There are tablets of paper. Some tablets have only 90 pound weight paper. And 90 pound especially needs to be stretched because after you've gotten it all wet it will be very wavy and you won't end up with a smooth surface. So you'll need to tape or pin the edges of 90 pound paper. There are, this is an Indian paper. And you can see the difference in that. This is also a handmade paper. Both Arches and Fabriano which is an Italian maker have been making papers like this for hundreds of years. And Fabriano has just a slightly different texture to it than Arches. But if the paper doesn't look good from the front, you can turn it over and use the back. It's really not terribly different. You can also cut these with scissors certainly or you can jostle them and use them for acrylics or oil or something else. You can buy water color paper in blocks. And we'll talk about that another time. But the blocks are glued on four sides and reduce the possibility of too many ridges as you're painting, and getting your paper really wet. This is again an Arches paper, cold press. This is fine grain as opposed to a kind of paper you can buy which is termed rough. And you can see the difference in the surface quality of the paper and rough. I hope that this has give you some idea of the variations of commonly used water color papers and it certainly will effect how you paint, and, and where you can take these papers whether it's outdoors or in. I hope that's helped you make some selection. My name is Eileen Pestorius, thanks until next time."