An exploration of grounds

It seems self evident that different grounds will affect how your art is seen.  Most watermedia artists I know tend to stay with the tried and true, "I've always used XX and it works for me."  This is usually followed by "I don't have the time or I don't know where to begin."  I suppose it is in my nature to explore different avenues.

When I began studying to be a watermedia artist I began as most young artist do, I bought cheap paint, brushes and a pad of watercolor paper.  I also began with big wet washes.

Paper, the most common ground, is graded by weight and type.  I've seen 60# and 90#, the most common and usable is 140#, beyond 140# there's some in the 200#s but more commonly is 300# and finally the Andrew Wyeth's choice 400#.  The type of paper, most common Cold Press, CP, Hot Press, HP and Rough.  You can purchase watercolor paper cut to size, in individual sheets the standard is called an Imperial Sheet 22 by 30 inches, bound in pads with a spiral binder, glued binder on one side and bound on all four sides called a block.   To add to the mix there are new papers that are not made of paper at all.  Yupo is a slick plastic sheet that is not absorbent at all.  Marker papers work for watermedia, Bee makes a wonderful paper.  TerraSkin is a Canadian paper made of crushed stone.

Beyond paper there are other grounds.  The oldest is traditional gesso panels, which I've posted on earlier.

Ampersan panel

 Ampersand makes a watercolor surface called Aquaboard that is the ground in the painting I use for my personal profile.  The miniaturist use Ivory, Ivorine, Pyralin, Polymin, Vellum (calf skin) and Lumabase.

I have painted on every surface.  Really, I'm that compulsive.

I began my watermedia career 6 years ago when I retired from teaching.  By watermedia I mean watercolor, gouache and egg tempera.  These are the paints I use.   Egg tempera is a media that can only be used in the studio.  The most portable is watercolor and its sister gouache.  Gouache is opaque watercolor, I can achieve a Gouache effect using transparent watercolor and adding opaque White or Black.  Over this time I've evolved to using pan watercolor.  I apply my paint thickly and I use very little water, an egg tempera technique also know as dry brush.  My entire kit folds into a purse size bag.  I travel to the Palette and Chisel in Chicago, 3 hours round trip by bus, twice a week for the day session long poses and paint 3 days in my studio.  Most of my paintings are figure studies, because I'm still learning.  I figured that realistic figure painting is the best test of technique although it is not my artistic direction.

Paper

The most important thing about paper is to know that it curls or warps when wet.  There is nothing wrong, paper is made of long fibers pressed together when an artist applies paint the liquid is sucked along the fibers until the paper drys.  When it is damp it'll curl or warp, when it is dry it'll flatten out again.  I suspect that the reason artists quite using watercolor is this effect because to layer effectively the artist has to slow down and allow the paper to do its thing.

Individual watercolor sheets and watercolor sheets bound in a pad  need to be bound in all four sides.  An artist can get away from it by reducing the amount of water they use or painting small on a large sheet (the water travels throughout the entire sheet minimizing buckling).  There are devices that an artist can purchase or the artist can tape the paper to a board.  I have never been able to tape the paper, regardless of type, without removing the tape and damaging the paper.  It is a "no brainer" to purchase a block of paper if you work in sizes smaller than Imperial.

What type of paper is best?  Every watermedia painter starts with CP.  Because I'm learning to draw with 100% accuracy humans I've adopted the technique of sketching the figure on the paper beforehand and evolved to HP paper.  HP is fantastically smooth.  Rough is so textured that because it adds another dimension for drying is the paper of choice for landscape painters, particularly plein air people.

140# CP

What weight of paper is best?  The heavier the paper the more you can abuse it.  Said another way, you can correct and move sections on a heavier paper similar to the corrections opaque painters (oil and acrylic) use.  Forced to advise, 140# probably CP, the artist will be able to correct and move somewhat and depending on the brand of paper will present a pleasing texture to apply the paint.

300# HP

What brand of paper?  Purchase the best quality of the brand you desire.  I like Fabriano because of their manufacturing technique using cotton balls, but any of the name brands works.  BTW Andrew Wyeth used Arches 400# CP; it is a surface that an artist can do anything to sand, scrape or sponge without damage, but you do alter the surface plane!

Other paper-paper

Remember that watercolor was used by illustrators.  many worked on multiple ply Bristol.  This resembles mat board.  It is very smooth, holds color washes and can be carefully corrected.  The more thicknesses, ply, the better.  Bristol has two finishes, plate and smooth.  It is also know as shirt cardboard being white on one side.

400# Arches CP

Plastic "paper"

Yupo was the buzz these past years.  Every watercolorist I've spoken to about it says pretty much the same thing, I've tried it but I couldn't get it to work.  I've tried Yupo on and off over these years and discovered two techniques that work.

Always wash the plastic with alcohol before painting and let it dry.  This removes all of the grease from handling the plastic.

I had success with a pointillism and hash mark painting alla prima and en plein air.  I applied dense, thick, dots of paint allowed them to dry and then washed hash marks over to build up the surface.

Yupo

The other technique that works is to carefully, very lightly dry wash the surface.  I did this allowed to dry, and carefully applied my hash mark strokes in increasing intensity.  This works; when it doesn't work you remove all of the layers of paint and have the pleasure of repainting the piece.

Bee paper

These techniques work with the Bee multi-media paper and I suspect that it will work with TerraSkin, although my attempts with TerraSkin were garbage.  Other multi-media paper will hold the paint using these two techniques, but be careful choosing the paperweight.  Flimsy paper makes my life difficult.

Thinking small.

Instead of getting larger with my painting, I've chosen to go smaller.  There are a number of reasons, I travel by public transportation so all my gear has to be attached to me, I work in crowded studios with up to 20 painters at a session, I paint plein air the more you take the more you carry and I work in a small studio at home and need the storage.

There's a realm of painters that work in miniature.  The supplier the I worked with is http://www.miniartsupply.biz/index.htm Mini Art Supply.  I chose a back nude from the Internet for the practice in anatomy and the subtle gradation of color and tested the grounds used by this group.

400# CP

 

Lumabase plastic

Vellum, actual calfskin

Ivorine

For this example, I used the Zorn limited palette (transparent Black Lake, Vermilion, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White) plus Terra Verde and Lazurite.  The Vermilion, Ochre, Terra Verde and Lazurite were purchased from Natural Pigments.  In the 400# CP example the background is a Cobalt wash.


Lumabase is the plastic used in Luminaria.  It is translucent, textured and thick.  The sample shown is a sixteenth easily.  I contacted Lumabase directly to inquire about purchasing directly and received no response.  Like Yupo it does not hold pigment, it is not absorbent.  I achieved this result by carefully layering wash over wash to build up the desired depth of color.

Vellum was an elegant ground.  It holds pigment excellently and can be scrubbed.  It is VERY expensive.

Ivorine, synthetic Ivory, is a textured plastic that accepts dry brush watercolor.  It was developed at the turn of the nineteenth century for fountain pen plastic and personal items like combs and hair brushes.  I don't believe that it is in production in the western world, but it maybe available in Asia.  For comparison, I made a Bristol example and a Yupo sample. Below.

I could not obtain the texture that I wanted for the model's skin, although this Yupo piece is the best lay down of pigment on Yupo that I have ever achieved.

Bristol

Yupo

Obviously, my examination of miniature grounds have taken me far afield for most painters.  Please remember that like all painters I'm obsessive.  There are other miniature painting surfaces; Polymin the new Ivorine and legal ivory (Mastodon and old piano keys).  At some point I plan to try Polymin and check out sources of Ivorine.  Mini Art is a delight and if you're interested in this area, buy from them.  Having been a purchasing agent at one time in my checkered career path, I like to have more than one source of supply for my materials.

Board

Above you'll see my smiling face painted on Ampersand Aquaboard.  Aquaboard is a textured surface that needs to be awakened with a lite wash of water before painting.  My portrait is made up of multiple washes of pigment.  The price of Aquaboard is low, more expensive than #140 CP but cheaper than 300# HP.  I purchase it from Michael's.

In an earlier post, I describe how to make traditional gesso panels.  I do so because my other love is egg tempera painting which is the same technique for putting pigment on the ground but using an egg yolk binder instead of Gum Arabic.  Using Egg Tempera the finished piece takes on a hard finished surface that can be polished with a cloth.

Watercolor on traditional ground

I like the appearance of watercolor on this traditional ground.  It has the appearance of a chalk finish, perhaps due to the marble dust and watercolor pigment interacting.  Before painting lightly sand the surface of the board.

My initial lay down of color was pointillism using a deerfoot brush.  This allowed me to create masses of color that I later blended using white.  When I finished the date, this painting was made alla prima, I didn't like the texture of this man's skin.  The following day I returned to the painting with a size 0 pointed round and dry brushed colored hash marks to smooth the transitions of color.  This is an area to explore.

So what's the point?

If price is driving your painting, use Bee multimedia paper, then 140# watercolor paper.  Painting on plastic sucks, but Ivorine is wonderful.  If price is no object; Aquaboard, 300# paper, 400# paper, Vellum and homemade panels in that order.  The homemade panels are so expensive because of the 3 days of time invested in their manufacture.  Below is a framed miniature traditional ground panel.

2 by 3 inch portrait.