Choosing Watercolour Paper

For someone thinking of taking up watercolour painting just taking the first step of getting the materials together can be a daunting experience. If you walk into any art shop you can be intimidated by the sheer amount of materials looking back at you. There's such an array of things and the amount of watercolour papers is mind boggling.

Where do you start? It's so easy to choose the wrong materials and this can have a major impact on your early painting experience. If you choose the wrong watercolour paper for example, all your early efforts will be disappointing. You could then make the mistake of thinking you don't have the talent to paint.

Choosing the brushes is equally confusing for the novice. So what does the novice need to begin painting.

Let's dispel one myth straight away. Watercolour painting does not have to be expensive, indeed it can be a cheap hobby if you know what to buy. Let's start with watercolour paper first.

There's so many types of watercolour paper that even experienced artists can get confused. I made plenty of mistakes with paper when I first started to paint. Drawing paper for example is not suitable for watercolour painting. It too thin and not absorbent enough for the paint.

Watercolour paper comes in different types and weights. Different manufacturers produce different papers but all the papers will have a weight rating and a surface description. So what do the descriptions mean? Here's a rundown to of what the classifications mean:

Machine-made watercolour papers come in three surfaces: rough, hot-pressed or HP, and cold-pressed (or NOT).

Rough Watercolour Paper:

This paper as its description says is rough, meaning it has a "tooth" or highly textured surface. Painting on this paper creates a grainy effect as the watercolour paint will collect in the indentations of the paper.

Hot Pressed:

Hot pressed paper has a fine grained smooth surface. This is smooth paper as opposed to the rough grain paper. Paint dries very quickly on this surface which makes it ideal for smooth washes. This is a very popular paper used by many paper.

Cold Pressed

This paper has a slightly textured surface that falls somewhere in between rough and hot pressed. This is the most popular paper used by watercolour artists and the one I would recommend for novice artists. This paper is called NOT paper because it is not hot pressed.

Watercolour paper comes in different thicknesses. This is measured in grams per square metre (gsm) The greater the gsm the thicker the paper. Paper thickness is also measured in pounds per ream (lb) again the higher the poundage the thicker the paper. For a novice painter a gsm of around 300gsm is a good paper to start with. It's nice to paint on and relatively cheap so you can make all your early mistakes without spending a fortune.

Most watercolour paper is acid free. This is essential when your painting skills increase as they inevitably will, because when you start painting good pictures that you want to frame and keep acid free paper will not yellow with age.

If you are just starting to paint I would recommend that you start with rough watercolour paper 300gsm. This is nice paper and won't break the bank, it has nice roughness to it which creates some great effects. It will take some experimenting with different paper manufacturers before you find the paper you are happy with. Once you do however you will find that you will stick with it. So experiment until you find the paper you are happy with. I'll discuss brushes in my next article.

Paul is the owner of the online art store Arts crafts & Hobbies. he is also the author of the blog Art Product reviews which discusses art products and has some wonderful tutorials on drawing and painting. For two great free art books go here now; Free Art Books

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