About watercolour paper - a post from Pillowfort

[mific]

I'm linking to and reccing this post called Demystifying Paper by sinopiasaur, over at Pillowfort. It's a detailed explanation of the types and specifications of watercolour papers, and I found it interesting and useful.

I don't know much about all this as I've only gotten back into traditional art in the last year or so and never had any training, so I'd be interested to hear what more expert members of the comm think about what sinopiasaur says, or any other information anyone has.

For myself, I need a heavier paper like 300gsm as I do often work pretty wet. But I've realised that other than occasional gift works like Christmas presents or cards, I hardly ever need archival quality as I scan everything and share it on line. I've had problems with Fabriano and Arches hot press papers - I find them very unforgiving and hard to do blending on although I like the smoother surface for detail work, so I'll probably experiment more with other brands. 

During Inktober, one hassle has been getting pens to work over an underlayer of coloured inks. My dip pen gets fibres caught in the nib, my glass pen isn't fine enough for most details, and fineliners get clogged on the underlying ink and I guess also by the paper's fibers once I've started damaging the surface with a layer of wet colour (even once it's thoroughly dry). Also, rougher papers are harder to use pens on and clog the tips/nibs more. Any suggestions about papers that are good for drawing on with pens over a watercolour/ink underlayer? 

Comments

[yhlee]

Thank you for the link!

Good luck with your quest for paper--I admit I have no suggestions, as I almost always do the inking first and watercolor over, which is not your technique. I hope someone else has a solution for you.

[dhampyresa]

Thank you for the link.

[olivermoss]

I don't use watercolors much, but in the mediums I do use paper is a big deal. The first marker paper I got was terrible and I eventually started blaming myself for not being able to get markers to work like other people could.

I have strong feelings about Rendr paper because it was the first good paper I used. Suddenly, so many things I'd been trying to do with my markers, pens and pencils just started to work. It's not the best for markers and I think I am going to eventually switch to just using loose cardstock.

There are a lot of ins and outs to using different mediums together and how they work with paper. I used to wind up with a mess every time I tried to ink a sketch.

[mific]

I watched a youtube tutorial by Laovaan, https://youtu.be/ZIbNaMd4ByM on markers, and I remember he said he tried special bleedtgrough-proof marker paper but had abandoned it and prefers cardstock now.

[olivermoss]

Cool. In that video he seems to be using line art printed on printer paper. That is actually suggested in Copic branded how-to books these days, instead of them suggesting Copic paper.

A lot of papers sold as marker paper are terrible, and will make a person feel inept. Right now I am doing pencils on sketch paper, using a light box to ink onto cardstock and then coloring that. I am happy with it for now, but if I eventually wind up just using cheap computer paper after everything else I've tried I don't know if I will laugh or cry. I should just use up my 'marker pads' as sketch books.

[mekare]

Hey thanks for linking, I found it very useful. So far I have been buying by weight, but never considered other factors. My current paper is really not handling a lot of wet in wet painting well and I‘ll definitely need to change it.

[jainas]

Ha, thank you for the link, it's very interesting!
I'm having some trouble with my inktober paper: I chose to use Canson C 224g as my main paper for my inktober because it's not *too* expensive and pretty versatile, (I actually switched from A4 to 24x32 mid-month because there was a sale and I bough 2 packs before realizing that they weren't the same size) but I sometimes realise I sould have upgraded to 370g... always too late alas, because most of the time I don't know I'll be using that much water... until I do. ^^

I'm also having tearing troubles when taking of the masking tape or masking glue, it never happened that much before! It is probably the paper that is too light...(Although sometimes I know it's me: I'm not patien enough andI'm always trying to take of the tale before everything is totally *totally* dry. *sigh*

[mific]

Canson Montval rough paper 270gsm is the only one where I had those problems with it sticking to the masking tape and surface tearing. Trouble is, if I stick the tape to my clothes first, it picks up cat hairs! I had to get a less sticky tape, which costs more.
Have you tried heating the tape with a hairdryer, and/or and pulling it back with the tape at a very low and steep angle, like almost 180 degrees? I heard that can work better. But the tearing might just be a thing with Canson. I find using a cheap hairdryer (on the wet art) to deal with my impatience is really helpful!