The paper of my preference is 140lb/300gsm (it is lovely to work on when stretched and it is affordable). I have attended a workshop where the demonstrating artist used an interesting method of "going around" the problem of paper cockling and eliminating the necessity for stretching: Their method involved taping the upper end of paper to the board with masking tape, and having 2 short strips taking care of the 2 bottom corners of the paper. As the work proceeded and wet washes were applied the paper started to buckle, she untaped the bottom corners, let the paper expand and then tape the bottom 2 corners again. And do it several times as she worked her way down. It seemed to be working, although the washes applied were not very wet. So I decided to try it and I have to say it did not worked successfully for me. I was regretting that I did not stretch the paper properly. On some other occassion I have read that reletively small (A4) pieces of paper could do withou stretching. I found, that the paper dries it regainss its flat surface well. But when you work very wet on it, it still buckles and allows the pools of water to gather in the "valleys" and lead to uneven distribution of pigment. So again I have come to conclusion, that I need to stretch the paper even when working on small scale. Now to the method of stretching I have tried various methods with different degree of success and disaster. Brown Tape: is a good one, stretches paper very well. I had made a mistake of not using a board primed with glossy paint. What happened that after I used it for the first time I did not manage to get off all the glue residue left by the tape. And when I stretched a larger piece of paper on the same board, the glue residue attached itself to the underside of my painting. When the painting was finished and it was time to cut it off the board, it would not come off because bits of it were firmly glued to the board on the "wrong/ underside of the painting. Needless to say, it was ruined. The method that works for me is to stretch the paper with board pins. I use a cheap cork-board covered with some clear smooth plastic (to prevent the brown staining that the cork-board causes on the under-side of the paper). From my experience the best plastic cover is the one in which you get your mounts wrapped when buying them from framing shops. It is very smooth, good thickness and lies flat on the surface of the board. Make sure that the plastic cover is not too tightly drawn (drum-like) around the board (that is what the boards plastic packaging is generally like). Drum-tight cover will not allow the pins to keep their place in the cork-board (as the paper dries it will be pulling on the pins and the tension of drum-like cover will be pushing them out of the board). So make that cover yourself that is nither too tight (lies flat on the surface of the board), nor too loose as to form too uneven surface on which the water will be able to gather in pools. For pins I use pin-thumb pins with plastic top (they are very easy and quickly to put in as the paper dries) . To stop the water gathering under the top of the pin and cause backruns, there are 2 ways of dealing with it: 1. Move the edges of the image about 2 - 3 cm inwards from the edge where the Thumb pins are. 2. Instead of pin-thumb pins use map pins (which are slightly thinner) with small ball-like top which do not allow the water in and later out to form the backruns. I will post some still pictures to support this blog-entry later.