I, like many before me, have struggled to understand how the paper works when painting watercolors. Water-Art start from basic and work our way towards mastery. Perhaps the biggest relationship in this art is to the paper.
It receive all our love, all motives and all broken dreams. Knowing his lover makes life much easier.
First lesson - all watercolor paper that absorb color expands. It will buckle when pouring on a lot of water. Some solve the problem by painting on very thick paper or painting with very little water in the paint. But I LOVE water - lots of water - so here's a guide on how to attach paper.
Paper comes in blocks or as loose sheets. Part of the problem with buckling paper can be solved by leaving the sheet in the pad. Then the paper buckles if you pour on a lot of water but will get quite tense when it dries.
You can also remove a sheet of paper and avoid stretching it. Thin paper buckles a lot and thick 600 g / m2 paper does not buckle despite much water. A smaller sheet bends less than a large paper. I find it hard to paint some techniques on buckled paper and you might have to process it further to fit it into a frame.
If you want to attach a loose paper to a board, there are five ways (as I know about). The first is to use regular masking tape - It's a fanatic tool also in the painting process - but is usually used to tape around the edges. You stick it on a dry paper, and it is often enough for those who only paint one part of the paper at a time. A shortcoming is that the tape does not work well on wet paper.
The next simple way is to simply staple the paper to the to the board in the edges. The method makes the job and stretch the paper when it dries, but there are some problems with this way. Among other things, patterns can be formed if water is gathered under the paper.
Then there is the way I try to use more and more often and that fits watercolor painters who wants more control even though they paint wet in wet. You soake the paper to make it swell - then fasten the paper and let it shrink and stretch, sort of like a drumhead. Then, when you paint wet, the paper is still flat. The problem is that there are many who try this but do not get it and give up. Another is that there are strong forces when the paper is stretched - so the tape can loose its grip or the board may brake. Some find this way tedious and stiff - I find it helpful.
Finally, you can glue the paper - I do not do it but may show it anyway some day - because in some cases a combination is the best way. To stretch large paper - glue, watercolor tape and staples may be required to be sure that it will hold the paper.
My next tutorial will show how you can stretch your paper - drumhead - method ;)
And Next Water-Art tutorial will be about different types of paper. I almost only use one type of paper - a bit because it's awesome, gives amazing effects, is reliable and durable, but mostly because it's extremely expensive so I get to feel like a poor artist...
Hope you enjoyed this post!
I will send upvote each comment I get and send send 2 SBD to the one person who answer the following question:
What is your favorite way to use paper of the ones described in the post - and why?
You can order portraits via my website: http://jnart.se/hem. Paying with crypto currency is possible.
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