Watercolor paper tests & reviews
So, this week I’ve been busy testing watercolor paper swatch samples to try an dfind a replacement for Arches rough 300 lb, the paper I’ve been using for a couple of decades. Arches is presenting me a cfew challenges – I know it’s the “MacDaddy” of watercolor papers, but that could be a combination of availability, marketing and user laziness.
I’m finding that Arches does not handle heavy glazes or over-painting very well. Underlying pigments get muddy and the paper pills a bit. Also, on broad washes, where I want to blend one color smoothly into another over a 30″ long area, the paper is tending to stain a bit, showing brushstrokes, unless I get it all down in one very fast fluid wash.
One paper company founder told me that when he asked many of his customers why they painted on Arches, when there were better papers out there, that they had replied that they had learnt how to deal with its constraints and peculiarities.
So I ventured forth and got hold of 7 different paper samples, and even, on a rumor, tested the reverse side of two!
I’ve made youtube videos for each test, which you can also find on my youtube channel here: Doug’s channel.
I also tested out six papers specifically for their response to my sea salt patterning effect, and I’ll share those results also.
Well let’s jump to the basic watercolor paper tests and reviews:
1: Lanaquarelle Rough 300 lb:
It turns out that Lanaquarelle, for a couple of reasons, may be my new favorite watercolor paper. Admittedly, in this swatch test I used waaaay too much pigment in the first layer of my background, so the glazing got very muddy, and it does tend to lift very readily, making over-glazing potentially tricky. But! It is that very tendency to lift easily which makes this paper so exciting. I use deliberate bloom effects and sea salt lifting quite extensively, and this stock facilitates blooms easier than any other paper I have ever worked on. It is exquisite for large washes, wet on wet blends and colors bleed beautifully into one another. Paint also dries with good vibrancy and intensity of color, which is a must. The two runners up, Hahnemühle and Saunders Waterford, both tended to mute a bit as paint dried, leaving a sifter, more drab look, though each of those stocks had very strong points as well. I went back over the swatch test and re-applied a few layers of glaze, trying to find the paper’s breaking point, and sure enough, even over a swash of only mid density pigment, after three or four layers of glaze th epaper did begin to pill a bit. Not surprising, as it is a very, very coarse, rough texture, but a bit disappointing regardless. So this paper is trumps as far as creating controlled, cauliflower blooms goes, and it holds its color intensity about the best, and certainly is a clear leader for lifting, but it just seems to pill and get muddy a bit too quickly under repeated glazes. I just did a third glazing test and this paper performed the best, along with Hahnemühle.
See the video below to watch the test in progress.
