"Watercolor Painting Tricks and WaterColor Tips?"

What You Must Know About Watercolor Paper.

Were you ever looking for the right watercolor paper and just got lost? Well I was lost, the amount of various brands available, the different surfaces, various weights and the sizing. So in order to make it easier, not only to make a good choice but to make the best choice in watercolor paper, I put some information together on the different surfaces, various weights and sizing. This helped me enormously at making the best choice. I hope the information will help you as much as it helps me.

I found that one of the most essential details of watercolor paper are the different surfaces available. Machine-made watercolor papers come in three surfaces: rough, hot-pressed or HP, and cold-pressed (aka NOT). Now if you were to make a choice based on this you would need to know a bit more on the different surfaces. Let me help you.

Hot pressed paper is very smooth, like a cotton shirt after ironing, rough paper is highly textured, and cold press is somewhere between the two. Cold press is probably the most commonly used because watercolors are harder to control on smooth paper and rough tends to create more texture than many artists prefer. Besides machine made watercolor paper there is also handmade paper still available but these are quite expensive as you could imagine. It is a very nice experience though painting on handmade watercolor paper. Now don't base your discussion only on the type of surface but also pay attention to the weight of the paper.

The weight of watercolor paper is an indication of its thickness , measured either in grams per square meter (gsm) or pounds per ream (lb). The standard machine weights are 190 gsm (90 lb), 300 gsm (140 lb), 356 gsm (260 lb), and 638 gsm (300 lb). For Paper less than 260 lb it's recommended you stretch the paper before use, otherwise it's likely to buckle. More about stretching paper here. Now the price will make the big difference here, but don't get tempted to get the cheap paper as will have a big impact on the quality of your painting. Sizing is another aspect of your watercolor paper to pay attention too.

Sizing of watercolor paper is the treatment of the fibers, that make up the paper, with gelatine to make those fibers less absorbent. Some times watercolor paper is sized during the production process, here all fibers are sized, other paper have the sizing painted on afterwards. Here only the outside is sized so you have to be careful when you rub or scrub your painting not to remove the sizing. Without the sizing your watercolor paper would be like a cloth napkin, now you try and paint on that :-)

As you can see choosing the right watercolor paper is not something that you should take lightly, please pay close attention to the surface, the weight and the sizing of your watercolor paper before you buy. Now what brand of paper is something else this is something very personal.