Favorite's Friday
Hello Zombi-corns, lets see the favorite's of the week.
So so sorry for the huge delay in this but I will be talking about my absolute favorite watercolor paper in this post as well as why you should be buying high quality material for your art.
So probably my most favorite medium is watercolor, I love it's raw look and feel and is very relaxing to use. Some of you may've noticed in some of my most recent watercolor paintings that the paper was wrinkling or warped in spots. That is because it was cheap light weight paper. I believe it was a canson roll of watercolor paper, it was about $30. Now if you're doing large multimedia pieces I think this paper would be good, or if your using it for mostly dry mediums. But if your going to be doing wet on wet painting then this is not for you.
You can see the warping in these in progress shots. The paper is completely dry in these. 
Probably the biggest problem with this was stretching it to get it to lay flat, this is where most of the warping took place. Also if you blended too much on a wet area the paper would start to disintegrate.
But I finally got a paycheck that I could use for art supplies and I got a three pack of Arches 300 lb cold press watercolor paper from dickblick.com.
This paper is my absolute favorite let's go over some pros and cons of it.
Pros:
Paint can grip onto it.
It has a deckled edge.
It (virtually) doesn't warp.
Colors stay vibrant through drying. And blacks stay rich and are not chalky.
Cons:
Cost,
three sheets from dickblick was around $50, and shipping. You can find a 5 pack on Amazon but there is a small about of uncertainty when buying from them, coming from experience when I've ordered items from their and gotten the wrong item or it never showed up.
Bowing
While it wont warp or crease like the lighter weight paper it will bow off the surface if you are wetting a large area. Because of it's stiffness though it's not much of a deterrant for me.
Griping paint
If you are an abstract painter or are wanting a lot of running paint and drips then this may not be for you., The reason I like this paper is because I can wet a small area and the water wont run down the page because of the paper's absorbency but some people may not like that.
Deckled Edges.
The deckled edge is great for presentation and gives it a high quality finesse but if you are doing an open composition and are blending out of the page the deckled edge can cause the paint to bloom if you are not careful, usually if I have this happen I can blend it out.
So there is a few facts for anyone wanting to experiment with this, I will also show how I plan on mounting these for an upcoming student show in the next coming weeks.
Now why to buy the higher quality stuff than buying budget friendly. Well it's simply because it will enhance your artwork as well as enhance it to other people. Most of my teachers grade very critically on materials and presentation, though they do all understand that we are all poor college kids.
But just like trying to budget to buy healthier options at the grocery store, you need to budget yourself to be able to buy the right supplies especially if this is what field you will be going into in life. Also you will usually find that higher quality art supplies respond and work better than cheaper materials.
Well that's it for this week, I will try and be more attentive to the blog, this week is spring break and I am planning on doing a lot of art things; painting, speed drying paintings, and framing pieces for a show. I will let you all know how it goes I hope you have a good weekend and spring break!
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