Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #5
After doodling a bee, I got it in my head I’d draw Wonder Woman in the leftover space, but somehow ended up turning her into Venus (the “on the battlefield with Felix” version), as you do. The greens and yellows are modern-style paints; the rest are from the ancient palette.
The sample paper–you can see its specs in the image–is Canson’s Moulin du Roy. I have a sketch pad with their Montval watercolour paper, and don’t like the way it handles water, and I think paints look dull on it. This is a higher-end paper, while Montval is meant to be student grade.
I like this Moulin du Roy paper a lot. It’s less textured than some cold press papers (fine grain); it feels smooth and easy to work on. Buckling/warping, when not taped down, is minimal. It was happy to let me do a light pencil sketch, erase it, do another, erase it, about 10 times. The inked line was done with a 005 (very fine) Micron pen, which went down okay, considering this is textured paper and not the best surface for a pen like that.
There’s something…I dunno…a little bit dirty about the surface, as if it had been left out to collect dust, but I’m not sure whether that’s literally true, whether it picked up dirt in my bag, or whether there are grey fibers or other particles in the paper itself. I didn’t notice it until I was peering at the art close up. I feel like the colours lose some of their vividness on this paper, but the fine-grain texture might be a fair trade off.
Update after holding it up to an east-facing window: Actually, colours look very vivid in the sort of direct bright sunlight one isn’t supposed to expose one’s paintings to.
Non-staining colours don’t lift off this paper with the breezy ease of the previous papers I’ve tested this month. Paints seem to dry more quickly, which is good if you’re impatient like me. My homemade earth-tone paints blend and layer easily on it. I have another sample sheet of the cold press, and I’d like to do more tests with it, and I’d like to try the heavier weight version. It makes me want to go out and do architectural paintings, of ruined temples and tumbled columns….
ave, klio!!
oo, I do like Venus au militaire! very cool.
now I need to make myself a cingulum militaire, for cosplay raiding parties! only mine’ll look lived in, not all shiny like the Wiki picture *grin* newbies never understand that shiny calls arrows from the sky!
a guy needs a hobby, amirite?
also, your art notes are really cool; not many places such can be found. am noting good papers, etc. and appreciate the info!
I do love the Micron pens because my hands don’t do a steady line width very easily. they look much neater. (then there’s Bill Watterson, who inks beautifully freehand with a soft brush, if I wasn’t feeling amateurish enough already).