SPQR BLUES Chapter V

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….

This is another paper made by St Cuthberts Mill, called Bockingford. It’s 140lb cold press, like the Millford paper, though it feels ever so slightly stiffer, and the texture is ever so slightly rougher. When doused with the same amount of water as I put on the Millford, it warped and didn’t dry back flat on its own like the Millford–but it flattened out after I forgot it in the scanner for a while. Layering on this paper is easier; I’ve been adding layer after layer on the skin tone, and not only didn’t accidentally scrub off the previous layers of paint (as with the Millford), but see no damage to the paper.

The manufacturer says: “traditionally made on a cylinder mould machine…surface is created using natural woollen felts that give it a distinctive random texture. Appreciated for its excellent colour lifting abilities. This is an extremely forgiving watercolour paper.”

I have at least 30 (possibly more) different types of watercolour sampler papers that I’d like to test, so I’m going to try to do a little piece of art each day–maybe during lunch breaks, so I can make sure I do them quickly, not worrying about the drawing details. Or worrying about, you know, anatomy and stuff.

Also of course I’m going to try to keep the comic chugging along.

Today’s “spend no more than an hour on it this time” test of the paper samples stars St. Cuthberts Mill Milford 140lb cotton cold press (“not”) paper.

click to see larger

Light pencil erases easily; paints lift well; the paper warps when wet but dries flat; and I discovered I need to learn PATIENCE before layering on this type of paper–it doesn’t dry immediately, but stays workable for a while, so I found myself accidentally scrubbing off the underlayer of paint.

I was also being my usual timid self, and the colours looked a bit washed out. I think more (patient) layering would give a much more vivid result, judging by how bright the more pigment-dense paints along the side look when thumped on the paper in masstone (in “full strength,” so to speak).

According to the manufacturer:

Millford is the newest watercolour paper developed by St Cuthberts Mill. It is styled on the discontinued Whatman watercolour paper….It is mould made from 100% cotton (just like the original Whatman), and its beautiful surface is created using natural woollen felts. It is deliberately created to have a high resistance to water, so its washes perform very differently to traditional watercolour papers.