painted on smooth board

watercolor on hot pressed paper

Stretching Watercolor Paper

You can buy pre-stretched watercolor paper in drawing blocks. When you’ve finished a painting, you use a knife to remove the sheet from the block. Also available are watercolor panels.
“Stretching watercolor paper”
It's generally recommended that watercolor paper less than (260 lb) is
stretched before use, otherwise it'll warp. It's a simple process.
“Here’s How”
You will need, gummed brown tape, plywood board about 2” larger then watercolor paper on all sides. I suggest board thickness of ½” to ¾”.
Cut four strips of gummed brown tape, one for each side of the piece of watercolor paper. Cut them slightly longer then the sides.
Soak a sheet of watercolor paper in cold water for a couple of
minutes. This is to allow the fibers in the paper to expand. Lift paper from water and let excess water drip off. With board laying flat, place wet paper in center of board. Paper at this point will be all hills and valleys. Now gently smooth out paper on board with your hands.
Moisten a strip of gummed tape and stick it down firmly along one side of paper, one third on paper. Tape down the other sides the same way. Leave board with paper flat till dried. When dry, you are ready to start painting.
Instead of using brown gummed tape, an alternative method is to staple the paper down onto the board.
Any tape or staple marks left on paper will be covered by the mat when painting is displayed.
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watercolor on rough paper

watercolor on smooth panel

watercolor paper

So you ready to start to paint with watercolors?
We will start with the paper.
Watercolor paper comes in many sizes, textures, compositions, and thickness . It is also available mounted on a panel and in a block form.
For the beginner I would suggest the smaller size paper, maybe like 8x10.
Before we go any farther one thing to remember is in watercolor painting you don’t use any white paint. The paper is your white.
This brings us to the composition of the paper. The cheaper paper is made with wood pulp which will yellow with age, so the parts of your paintings left to look white will yellow with age. The best paper is made with 100% rag content and will not yellow.
The texture refers to the painting surface. In art stores you will find, rough, medium and smooth. Type of painting normally dictates the texture to use. Landscapes look good on rough and medium, smooth is more for detailed styles.
Thickness or weight of paper is a subject in its self, which includes stretching the paper. I will address this in my next posting.

painting with watercolor

I have drawn and painted with many mediums over the years, but stayed away from watercolor painting due to my childhood experiences. When in grammar school the paper curled and all the paint ran together making some very ugly grays.Many years later I thought I would give it another try. First after reading many books, from stretching the paper, paint brands, different techniques, and painting styles, I gave it a try.After going through the normal trial and error period I started producing some good paintings. I have found watercolor painting to be my choice medium for expressing myself.My love for watercolor painting then expanded to teaching others all I have learned over the years so they could get past that trail and error period faster.