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Papers: why will some just not work for us?
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Message
Posted
I know we've been here before; I also know there's no real answer to the question. It may be important to ask it though - because: for example ... If I judged my abilities as a watercolour painter by my recent experience using Arches Rough, I'd give up. It's a prestigious, expensive, highly regarded paper, but I'm having to conclude I just can't paint on it. I can't get watercolour paint to flow (I've had more success with Chromacolour acrylic - wish I could understand why!), it seems to swallow my washes in one thirsty gulp; maybe I'm intimidated by it ... whatever the reason, I not only don't get on with it, I'm beginning to hate it!
Watercolour, as I've said before (to excuse my maladroitness) is not my primary medium; unlike many, I didn't start out by watercolour painting; even at school, we used opaque (cheap) paint, on such horrible surfaces as sugar paper, and occasionally cartridge. I don't think our art teacher was over-fond of watercolour, nor would he have had the financial resources available to invest in it.
I've always wanted to paint in watercolour, though; and so keep trying. To come to the point - it may not be the painter who is the problem, but the paper on which they paint. I've got on very well with Bockingford (by my standards), The Langton, once I'd got used to it, and my all time favourite is the Hahnemühle Torchon, on which paint flows as it might in my dreams, and I can get hard edges when I want them. I'm much better on any of those surfaces than I'll ever be on Arches.
I still want to try other papers - Alan Bickley has recommended Two Rivers products, for instance, and that's just the sort of company I'd like, in my small way, to support. I'll try them, in search of perfection! And I will get my itchy little mittens on Saunders Waterford again in the near future: I had several happy experiences with that.
My purpose here however is to tell you from personal experience that the surface on which you work is always important; this is more true of watercolour than almost any other medium. though by a short head. And thus - if you fear you're making a pig's ear of the medium, it may just be that you're using a paper you don't get on with. I'm not a proper watercolourist, though, and would welcome others' views.
Posted
Arches Rough isn’t the easiest paper to work with, in my experience anyway! So you aren’t alone here Robert…
It’s obviously better when used for the ‘direct’ style of painting, rapid plein air in particular. It needs to be used in a larger format generally, (say half imperial), perhaps quarter imperial and using larger brushes (including the Hake), and expect to see areas of the white surface showing through - that’s part of its appeal…
Dry brush work will work particularly well on a Rough surface, leaving these untouched areas visible as the paint settles on the highest layer, if that makes any sense! Easier to demonstrate than explain!
You need to persevere, it takes time and a change of approach than say working on Bockingford…or Langton…
I’m writing a feature for TA which will be published next year titled ‘Know Your Paper’, where I’ll be discussing (and demonstrating) the different surfaces of watercolour paper including manufacturing processes, explaining gelatine sized paper, mould-made and handmade rag papers and so on… it’s a complex subject.
Posted
I do like Archers papers but as Alan points out not easy to use , I always it a bit like trying to paint on a cauliflower.
I tend to use it very occasionally for commissions but only when I can use dry brush technique as it more suited to that .
It’s certainly a complicated subject and the choice is very much a personal preference, when I lead beginners watercolour groups I spend quite a bit of time talking about paper and take a good half dozen sheets of different types to demonstrate.
Yes a good painting can be done on a relatively cheap paper but it definitely looks better on a better quality and the right surface paper. My favourite is Bockingford Rough , and a hand made 100% rag paper that has a very rough surface I don’t use both on a daily basis though. As Alan says it takes time to get used to the different papers , I think it also takes time to learn which paper suits what subject . Very few introductions to using watercolour go into enough detail about the choice of paper but it’s the very foundation of your painting so use a good stable surface . Sorry I’ve harped on so much but it’s a great subject for discussion.
Posted
I’ve used Arches paper for a while and never had a problem as it suits my style of painting. I’m currently using a Bockingford gummed pad (below) for a weekly course I’m attending as I don’t have time to stretch lots of paper and it’s surprisingly good. My one complaint is that there is a gap in the edge gum to allow you to separate the pages and occasionally with heavy washes you get localised slight buckling. However the paper surface itself is good . It’s a fine surface which I prefer. It gets a 9/10 from me.
Posted
Now I find Arches CP beautiful to work on, but the Hot-pressed, which is generally raved about, I can’t get on with at all; much prefer Saunders Waterford’s HP. It must be down to the different ways we apply the paint!I think Arches HP is both internally and externally sized. It definitively feels stiffer, and when you pick it up and flaps it around a bit, it does give off a certain sound. I think Saunders Waterford only has external sizing. It's less stiff. I suppose that makes Arches tougher. I do prefer Saunders Waterford myself though.
Edited
by Rikard Lindby
Posted
I’m in the process of writing an article for The Artist, looking at the different papers available to us artists, so I’ve been doing some research directly with the manufacturers…
Arches HP is indeed both surface and internally tub sized - the remaining range of papers being just surface sized.
Posted
I just use normal lining paper. I’m not that far up my own sphincter, to think people might want my work in a hundred years… not implying anyone is though, it’s a free world. I use my own gesso… acrylic Matt, which is, in its nature, anti-acid. Then again, I am a decorator that has an affinity with paint and associated products. Basically, I use a 1,000 grade lining paper, deep pile roller to give it one coat of paint. After, Sand each piece with 120 grade sand paper. That’s it. Good to go. For me anyway.
Edited
by Martin Shaw
Posted
I don't think I'd get on too well with lining paper either, though... I need a paper that helps me: certainly so far as watercolour's concerned. (Come to think of it, I don't know where I'd go to find lining paper - like a lot of other things, it was once ubiquitous and now hard to find: see below, re: brown paper bags.)
In my time, I've painted with gouache on those brown paper bags shops used to hold your 'taties: worked well, because the grip was just enough, and your mid tone was there already. I've lost the last one I did that way - I think it was a study of Ho C hi Minh, which will also give you an idea of how long ago that was. Also, Georg Grosz painted on cardboard - probably because it was all he could get rather than it being a matter of preference. Bags today seem to be not what they were - put as much as a tomato in one, and it's likely to fall right through the bottom.
I'm not really expecting my stuff to be sought after in 100 years, either: indeed, I'm not at all sure human life will even exist in 100 years' time; nonetheless - I'd like to give myself a chance; even though, when you look at the tens of thousands of painters throughout the world, you do realize the odds on our being celebrated in the centuries to come aren't good. Still, as I'll be dead, I won't care.
Posted
Your PS - oil paint; well, that'll rot the paper eventually, but in fact.... it'll be a long time before it does. I take your point! All the same, I'd rather not be a Josuah Reynolds, and see my stuff fall to bits before I've even got it out of the studio.
I don't think one needs to be up one's sphincter - an unhappy image - to be concerned to use the best paper or other support; but it's perfectly true that painters with little money painted pictures on unprimed table cloths, or tea-towels, at times - and probably not only in the distant past. A lot depends on two quite different things; one, how much money you have to spend on surfaces; two - what your painting is supposed to be doing for you - it matters to some that their paintings will last much as they painted them; to others, the whole point is not some kind of investment in the future, but an emotional response to the immediate. I go for a combination of the two - though being too concerned with posterity does seem to suggest that one's work won't survive to see it.
Deep waters. In which I suspect I'm drowning.
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