Thursday 2 August 2012

New Paper

I have been having some small problems with the paper I use on a regular basis. I am lazy by nature and produce a fair old number of paintings during the year, Hence, I really do not want to have to stretch each piece in the time and tested way. Not only does it require planning, but carrying the board to and from the art group is heavy and cumbersome. I have been pleased with the advent of the gummed block as this is supposed to make cockling a thing of the past. Sadly, with the amount of water that I use in my work, even good quality paper like the Fabriano Artistico 300gm paper still created bumps  in my paintings. This is not a problem in so far as when dry, it does become relatively flat again, and any extra flattening is not difficult to achieve. However, I have been finding that the washes accumulate in the hollows and can put unsightly stripes in the painting.
Peter, a member of the Art group, is very good about doing mass orders for us to save postage, so I thought I would test out a heavier duty surface. I ordered some sheets of Fabriano 300lb extra white, and some sheets of  Hahnemuhle 'Cornwall' 450gm paper ( I do wish they would decide which weight measure we should use across the board!) I quite liked the look of the texture of the 'Cornwall' and though it might fit with the work I have been doing lately. I will let you know how I get on with the heavier Fabriano in a later post, but decided to start with the 'Cornwall'



For those of you who are not familiar with the paper, I think you can clearly see the surface and the effect of adding paint.

Remember the point of the exercise was not to stretch the paper, but to paint with plenty of water and see if I could keep it flat.
As this was an experiment with paper, I decided to stick with what I know best, and do a straight painting with a washed background. The subject is pink hellebores, as I came across a rogue plant in the process of flowering at the moment. I am sure it has never flowered at this time of year before!
I did the drawing in the usual way, and painted the individual flowers before tackling the background.



So far so good, but then the Fabriano was always fine at this stage. I wet the background fairly thoroughly, and started to drop the colours into place, and as it dried I realised that the paper was not going to stay flat. No cockling appeared in the middle of the paper, but there was considerable curling of the edges which made working on the painting difficult and uncomfortable.



I had to turn the painting over onto a clean board covered in white paper, (I am always afraid that the wood colour will seep out of the board and stain the painting) and to liberally spray the back of the painting, dampening it throughout, and then placing more paper and another heavy board on the top. Leaving it to dry thoroughly, it did in fact become flat again and I was able to finish the painting.



I have decided that this paper will get used in future for my more abstract collage work, as the texture made very little difference to the finished painting, and I will continue to paint my usual florals on my still favourite Fabriano Artistico Extra White.

In fairness to the 'Cornwall' paper, it was extremely hot in the studio, and maybe the paper just dried out too quickly to keep its shape, and there certainly was no cockling in the centre of the paper, although I did not have it very wet at that point.

7 comments:

  1. What size are you working at? Is that a full sheet you are using? I'm interested in your feelings about this paper as the texture looks a little different to anything I've used before. The nearest I've seen was one used by Charles Reid on a course I attended and I know Peter acquired some after a real saga in correspondence.

    Thanks for the insight and also for another lovely piece.

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    1. Thanks Mick. I am working on a sheet only 35cm x 50 cm. It seemed silly to go bigger until I had tried the paper, but I have to say that as I mount and frame the painting as I go along and am taking 90 of them to the exhibition, I never go beyond a 50 x 70 cm frame with a mount of about 7cm width. This is as big as I can handle and the public do not seem to want anything bigger. My favourite size frame is 40 x 50 cms, and the public seem to like this at the price I ask.Hence the size of the paper.
      With regard to the paper, I did find it ok to work on, but Peter did say things about it being wood pulp and not cotton rag, so do not know what the archival qualities would be like.He made it sound a bit inferior, and he knows about these things! I will use Fabriano in future, I think, but use up the Cornwall for the gesso/collage things. If you want to try a bit, I could send you a small piece.

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  2. A very nice painting. I stretched at one time and after initial tribulations got very good at it, although I felt that removing some of the sizing this way wasn't always beneficial. I don't bother now. Even artists like Viktoria Prischedko and Gerard Hendriks, who use a lot of water and pigment don't stretch BUT they do use heavyweight paper. On the other hand Robert Wade who uses big washes on 140lb paper doesn't stretch so...

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  3. Actually I think Cornwall is high quality cellulose BUT not cotton rag which is considered superior. Bockingford is wood pulp.

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    1. Thanks Peter. I knew you knew more about the paper than I did!! Yes, lots of good artists use heavy paper so there is no need to stretch.I must invest in some 300lb (is that 640gm?) and see how I get on.

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  4. I know this is an old post but read it with interest about your experiment on different papers. I understand not wanting to take heavy boards to class. One of my friends at our art group paints flowers in much the same way as you do. She uses foam board to tape her pictures to as she paints them. She finds this is quite adequate to stop the buckling that may occur. She tapes evenly all round with painters tape.

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    1. Thanks for reading the post and your helpful tip. It is so good to share.

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