Look After Your Paper

Thinking of buying a shedload of watercolour paper to stash away in preparation for the long, cold winter months? There are a few things worth considering before splashing the cash, not least of all making sure it comes from a good source and has been looked after properly.

There’s a very good reason why good, high quality, watercolour paper comes packaged in plastic; it stops the air getting to it. Why would that be an issue? You might ask… I’m glad you asked – it’s all to do with the sizing…

Sizing is a gelatin-type substance added to watercolour paper that allows us to apply paint to it, generally push it around and lay washes to some degree of satisfaction; In short, it gives us control. Without it, watercolour paper would act like blotting paper; if you added paint to it, it would soak straight in and not let you do anything further with it. It would be almost impossible to lift out or push around; the fact is, it would be useless and only fit for the bin. If this sounds familiar, then there’s a high probability that you’ve encountered the anomaly yourself.

At workshops, it isn’t uncommon to discover the occasional student struggling with a sheet of paper that appears to have turned blotchy when paint is applied to it and – frankly – a bit manky around its edges. The reason is almost always down to the fact that the paper is old, so the air has got to it, or it has been stored in a damp place, and the paper has absorbed excess moisture. Over time, because of one or both of those things, the sizing may have broken down.

The little nugget we should take from this scenario is very simple; look after your paper. I’ve had watercolour paper that has become unusable because it has been left lying around in the studio and exposed to the elements (in fact, only recently, I had to throw out almost a whole pack that had been leaning aginst a cold, slightly damp, outer wall… don’t judge me…). If possible, I would recommend storing it in the plastic wrapping that it came in or, if it didn’t come packaged that way, then place it in a plastic bag anyway.

One word of caution should perhaps be added to this, and that is to take care when buying paper on offer that appears to be cheap as chips and almost too good to be true… because it probably is. If it is old stock that hasn’t been stored properly, then it might turn out not to be the bargain you were hoping for after all.