Hello to the beautiful blog! Could you be so kind and link me to any dark magic rituals I need to perform in order to prevent watercolour paper from getting wavy?
Most of the people admiring this blog have already sold our souls to Tumblr. So as not to inconvenience you or taint the quality of your soul we have asked our dark overlords directly so as to save you the trouble.
The following tips are useful for anyone to know. They can be applied to all water based mediums. (Watercolour, Gouache, Ink…etc)
Watercolour paper will naturally try to curl because let’s face it, water and paper never get along.Of course the easy option would be to reduce your water usage, and wait for the paper to dry before adding the next layer of water, but this is not always possible.
Other then that there are two main things you can do.
Purchase your watercolour paper in blocks (not simple sketchbooks)Blocks of watercolour paper will come in either a rough or smooth texture (like sketchbooks will)This paper is usually high quality and because of that can be quite expensive.
All the pages are glued together at the edges, and you must use a scalpel (or similar tool) to separate them once your painting is finished and dried. (If you remove the page before you’re done the paper will curl as it dries). You can only work on one painting at a time with these blocks because of it, but because the edges are sealed they cannot bendEssentially what it’s doing is stretching your canvas for you. The paper is stretched to it’s limits while you’re working on it, and while it dries so it cannot curl as it’s drying.
THIS IS THE CHEEPER OPTION! Stretch the paper yourself: (This is what I do)Grab some tape!(I recommend masking tape as it doesn’t tend to rip paper when you remove it)Grab a surface! It can be a plank of wood, cardboard, the back of a book (not an expensive book)…etc Whatever you like working on. BUT IT HAS TO BE A SURFACE THAT WON’T BEND! (You’re going to tape your page to the back of it. Don’t pick another piece of paper).I like to stick my papers to a book.
Then paint and peel the tape off once you’re done.I WOULD LIKE TO ADD That I work in gouache paint, which means that I don’t use an extensive amount of water.If you are working in ink or watercolour I’m aware that there is a slightly different process to stretching a canvas. I’d like to direct you to [THIS VIDEO] where a lovely English fellow will show you how to stretch watercolour paper if you’re working with a lot of water.If you don’t have seven minutes to spare here’s a nice American girl who will show you how to stretch paper in half the time [VIDEO LINK].
If all else fails sell your friend’s soul to Satan in exchange for art-related superpowers.Don’t sell your own soul, that would be stupid.
Good luck with your efforts! And happy painting!Sincerely,- Admin Mamma Katie
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