Available in two weights: 120gsm (heavy paper) and 270gsm (heavy card) in A4 and A1 sized sheets.

Maya paper and card colours

Tip for sketchbooks: if outdoors use an elastic band, paperclip or similar to stop pages flapping in the breeze.

To get straight lines in paint try brushruling. Steady a ruler with one long side on the surface and one tilted up in the air with your fingers curled under it. Run your paintbrush ferrule along the edge.

Shadows do not have to be plain grey. Try chromatic greys in complimentary colours to the object. A lemon could have a violet-grey shadow.

If you find your work too fiddly and tight then as you progress through the painting from large brushes to smaller brushes, try staying with the large brushes for longer and only using the smallest brushes at the very last.

The Watercolour Paper Department on the Jackson’s Art Website.

Watercolour paper

Jackson’s 140lb 100% cotton Eco paper is internally & externally gelatine sized and handmade in India. It is now available in 20 sheet blocks of pre-stretched paper that is glued on all four sides.

Introductory offer: 20% off until Dec. 1st. (click on link to go to offer)

The blocks come in three sizes. If you haven’t used a block of paper before: after the watercolour painting has dried you run a blunt knife around the edge from the inside, starting from the opening, to remove it. Then the next sheet is ready to paint on. Having the paper ready to paint on is handy especially for painting en plein aire.

Jackson's Eco Paper Block

The machinery normally used to make paper uses alot of energy, turning paper pulp into a giant roll of perfectly dry paper in barely a minute. Our handmade papers however are made from recycled cotton, they are individually set into the moulds and then dried slowly in the Indian sun. The water used in the production is then run off to irrigate the field of the neighbouring factory.

Our Eco Paper being made in India

Papers on the new Jackson’s Art Supplies website.

paper

Canvas must be sealed (sized) from oil paint to prevent rotting. You can use rabbit skin glue or acrylic medium to seal the surface. Then you can apply one or more layers of primer or ground.
This can be oil primer, acrylic primer or any of the gessos depending on the texture of the surface you require for painting and the paint you will be using.
Acrylic primer (sometimes called acrylic gesso) will do both jobs at once- sealing (sizing) and providing a ground.

Paper must be primed as well before you paint oil colour on it. This is both to protect the surface from oxidizing (slowly rotting) because of the oil and to ensure a stable paint film because the paper would soak the oil out of the paint (it leaves a ring of oil) and there wouldn’t be enough binder left in the paint to form a stable film. Most artists apply 2 or more thin coats of primer. If the paper is thick enough (300gsm or greater) you can probably do just one side; if it is more lightweight than that it is best to apply it to both sides of the paper as the first side will curl and doing the second side after the first has dried will flatten it back out.

Primers on the Jackson’s Art Supplies website.

priming canvas

Watercolour Paper
Watercolour paper has a “hard size” on top of the paper that allows the water to penetrate and the pigment to remain on the surface. This gives the painting its brilliance and also allows for corrections.
Watercolour paper comes in different textures. Hot Press (HP) is the smoothest. Not (also called cold pressed) has a medium textured surface and is the most popular finish, it is especially good for beginners. Rough is highly textured paper.
The weights of the papers range from 90 lb to 400 lb. The heavier the weight of the watercolour paper the less the paper will buckle when wet. For lighter weight papers (140lb and below) the paper is usually wetted and laid out on a board and taped down with gum-strip tape. Alternatively you can use a specially designed paper stretcher device like the Keba Artmate.
Watercolour papers come in sheets, pads, rolls, and blocks. Blocks are pads that are glued on all four sides except for a small space on one side. This allows for painting without stretching and when the painting is dry you can remove the top painted sheet by running a butter knife around the edge from the gap in the side.

Drawing Papers
Cartridge paper is a high quality type of heavy paper used for illustration and drawing.
Bristol is a strong and durable, all-purpose drawing paper. It has a very hard surface that is heavily sized, polished, and compressed.
Pastel paper is used for soft and hard pastels and charcoal. It is usually coloured paper, with the colour chosen being very important as it will be a major component of the finished work. It comes in a few different textures. Ingres is a laid paper with a mesh imprint from a screen. Random texture gets its surface from a cloth matt imprint, similar to Not texture watercolour paper. There are a few types with toothy textures from ground cork that are similar to sandpaper. A few come with the colour screenprinted on and some are waterproof for working the pastels with water.
Paper for oil pastels is hard and white and usually comes in a pad with glassine paper interleaving to protect it from smudging.

Oil and Acrylic painting papers
These medium to heavyweight papers are usually canvas textured and primed for painting with either oil or acrylic. The ones prepared for acrylic paint are universally primed to accept both oil and acrylic. Paper must be sealed completely if painting with oil paints because the oil will separate out if the paper is absorbent and it will also rot the paper over time. Although acrylic paint can be used on any paper, this paper is specifically designed to mimic canvas. It is especially useful for taking to classes or using in the field and is an economical choice for making a study or sketch prior to the major work on canvas.
You can also get sheets of primed actual canvas (as opposed to the canvas-textured paper) in pads.

Fine Art Digital papers
Inkjet papers that allow high quality reproductions of your artwork come in a wide variety of textures and weights. They are coated to accept the ink jet inks. They can be sprayed with an inkjet fixative to prevent smudging if that is a problem.

Click here for the offer on the Jackson’s website.

Winsor and Newton ink set

Can be applied onto absorbent or semi-absorbent surfaces and requires no special preparation. Suggested absorbent surfaces include paper, canvas, fabrics, wood, plaster, shells and hardboard. Non-absorbent surfaces like metal, plastic or glass should be lightly abraded with sandpaper or steel wool before brushing on the Watercolor Ground.

Daniel Smith Watercolour Ground

Similar products:
Golden Absorbent Ground

–brush sets

–pads (watercolour, cartridge and pastel pads)

–paint sets (Cotman watercolour, Griffin Alkyd, Designers Gouache and Galeria Acrylic).

Offer ends June 27th.

Click here for the offer on the Jackson’s website.