Ink-And-Watercolor Tips

[loogie]

Got my Aquarius II paper and new paints yesterday (finally! it took them like 9 days). The AqII is pretty much everything I hoped it would be. It's much smoother than cold press and so I can use even my finest dip pens on it (they just scratched the cold press all to hell). It's also a LOT thinner and absorbs liquid differently, so everything takes longer to dry and lifting works a lot better. Longer to dry may sound like a negative, but it allows very smooth washes for both land and sea.

Unfortunately ink also takes longer to dry and I was impatient so I had a bit of ink runnage in my little experiment. Wet in wet tends to fan a LOT so you have to be careful. But color pulls (think Gimp/PS smudge tool) extrenely well.

On buckling: supppsedly you can paint on AqII without stretching. I suppose you could say this but it does wave up a bit. I'm prpbably going to tape it down in the future, but not the massive tape job one needs for stretching; just something to keep the edges down since edge curlung is the most annoying part of the slight waving the paper does.

The paints are awesome. I got Daniel Smith PrimaTek in Serpentine and Transparent Yellow Ochre and they are both extremely close to the website's swatches and look great on the paper.

I'll probably scan last night's experiment tonight, but no judging lol ... it was total "let's see what happens if I do this..." so it looks like crap.


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Cold press generally is what i prefer for watercolour, but when inking it'd best to get the smoothest paper you can find.. different brands differ as well... so don't feel it's enitrely a price or "type" thing... I doubt you'd be able to paint without buckling without streching it, unless it's prestretched, or a heavy enough (300+) paper that it just can't buckle due to the strength of the thickness... if you don't like buckling, the only 100% fix is stretching its just annoying to set up.. i hate the glue tape, any i've yet to work out an easier way to do it up...

That sounds like a much better paper overall anyways... we found that the cheaper stuff either never actually goes into the paper, usually when there's not enough rag in the mix... or it'll soak in almost instantly, without getting the correct mixing effect...

As for longer drying times.. thats always true.. watercolour is pretty much never a one sitting per painting experience... you do layer upon layer and wait for it to dry.. fanning can be a bad thing and get "backruns" were if you add new water to a slightly damp part of the paper you'll get odd blossoms.. something you can use for texture.. but most of the time its an unwanted effect... thats why its generally best to do sections of the painting that do not touch, then letting them dry before doing anything even remotely adjacent... thats why a hairdryer also helps...