How much does size really matter?

No, I don't mean men's willies, I mean size as in sizing on/in watercolour paper!

When paper is manufactured, sizing is added to reduce how much water the paper will absorb. Unsized papers are basically kitchen paper and so on - very absorbent and of course useless for art. Drawing papers are slightly sized ("slack sized") and have a bit of resistance to water, but watercolour papers are much more "hard sized" to make them very resistant. Now, within watercolour papers, we often refer to some as "hard sized" to mean "very hard sized" whereas the weaker sized watercolour papers are still "hard sized" in the context of all types of paper.

When paper is being put together, sizing can be added to the pulp, which results in "internal sizing", or, onto the surface ("surface sizing" - the latter is the much more water repellent form of paper.

In this video, I compared the following - the manufacturers are indicated as follows:
[DR] = Daler and Rowney
[SCM] = St Cuthbert's Mill
[C] = Canson
Chemical Pulp:
Aquafine Hot Press. This is a fairly low-end student-grade paper, which I only use for swatching normally [DR].
Optima This is not a watercolour paper - it's a mixed-media paper that I just added for a bit of a laugh really to see how it performed [DR].
Bockingford Cold Press. This is a very good paper that I use day-to-day [SCM].
Langton Rough. This is again, a decent day-to-day paper [DR].

Cotton Rag:
Langton Prestige Rough. This is a generally good paper that is a very good entry-level-to-cotton-papers paper, for people who are moving up from chemical pulp papers [DR].
Saunders Waterford Cold Press. This is pretty hard-sized and a very high quality paper [SCM].
Arches Cold Press. This is quite hard-sized but ultimately no more so than Saunders Waterford [C].
Millford Cold Press. This is almost an "extreme sized" paper, with a very strong surface sizing. There is nothing else like this  on the market [SCM].

I did my tests using French Ultramarine by Winsor & Newton in one of their large pans - these are VERY economical and well worth having for the colours you use the most:

Amazon USA No stock at the time of writing.
Amazon UK £20.99 £15.10
Amazon Canada No stock at the time of writing.
Jackson's £20.99 £13.64

Little Monday Art Haul!

Aren't Mondays shit? I hate Mondays at best and more so when it's poured with rain all night - but getting a NICE PARCEL makes all the difference! 

This little haul (video below) contained the following and was from The Society for All Artists (The SAA), which I have just joined as they have a really cool deal that ends tomorrow for a FREE SCHMINCKE TRIAL SET for all new members, which is worth about 30 quid and contains TURNERS'S YELLOW, QUINACRIDONE GOLD (HUE), POTTER'S PINK, COBALT VIOLET (HUE), FRENCH ULTRAMARINE and PERYLENE GREEN, which is an interesting mix! Oh btw, I've renamed "haul" videos as "Doctor's Orders" - cute huh?

Good news for non-members and those in the USA/Canada - The SAA sells via Amazon websites worldwide, so I've curated links to the items I procured in case you're interested in trying them - and a really cool thing about The SAA - they charge the EXACT SAME for 1 full Imperial or 2 half Imperial or 4 quarter Imperial sheets i.e. no cutting fee on papers! That's a really good saving. Incidentally, Amazon delivery savings can be made by getting an Amazon Prime account, which gives you free shipping and access to a LOT of TV and movies for one annual fee -  you can trial it for 30 days free of charge at the moment - just click the appropriate image for your regional Amazon site (from left they are USA, UK - unfortunately there are no trials in Canada right now, sorry :( ):

I've also included Jackson's where available - they do ship worldwide!

MILLFORD WATERCOLOUR PAPER 1/4 Imperial, CP, 140lb - 20 sheets
This is a very special paper - as you may know from my review of it - but I've not used it in a few months so I decided it was high time for a re-stock! 
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.COM - US$33.54 for 20 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £30.28 for 20 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CA - CDN$13.95 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM JACKSONS (UK) - £18.80 for 5 full Imperial sheets.

SAUNDERS WATERFORD PAPER, 1/4 Imperial, Rough, 300lb - 4 sheets
This is a very heavy paper - you can see The Frugal Crafter using this exact paper in a recent video - and I love the Rough texture option. It's 100% cotton and lovely to paint on.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.COM - US$15.16 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £13.08 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CA - CDN$20.23 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM JACKSONS (UK) - £7.80 for 1 full Imperial sheet.

WINSOR AND NEWTON "Desert Collection" watercolours
349 Yellow Titanate (PBr24) 5mL (discontinued)
BUY FROM DICK BLICK VIA  AMAZON.COM - US$7.13.
BUY FROM ART WORLD ONLINE LTD VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £5.50.

DANIEL SMITH "PrimaTek" series:
190 Serpentine Genuine (N/A) 5mL 
BUY FROM AMAZON.COM - US$11.91
BUY FROM TRAVELDOM STORE VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £30.91.
BUY FROM JACKSONS (UK) - £9.00.

Product Review: Millford Watercolour Paper - Part II

I posted Part I on of this review with some background information and product links a week or so ago. The full review is now online:

If you like the look of Millford too and want to try it out:

Millford only comes in 300gsm (140lb) cold-press paper in the form of Imperial, Half Imperial and Quarter Imperial sheets [US readers can buy it here], which is very economical even though it's quite a large outlay as one has to buy 4 or 10 sheets as a minimum from most suppliers, but do shop around. If you find a vendor that sells it by the sheets, please let me know in the comments and I'll add it to the post! You can buy Bockingford and Saunders Waterford papers via my Watercolour Supplies page.

Product Review: Millford Watercolour Paper - Part I

EDITED 19/07/16 - I have just found somewhere you can buy original Whatman watercolour papers - albeit antique sheets. I've not bought anything from them and know nothing about them but I just found it online - please post a comment if you know if they're a reliable person to buy from or not. Thanks.

As astute viewers or readers will note, I have reviewed recently the tinted Bockingford range (Review. Video.) from St Cuthbert's Mill. In amongst the same package of sample papers from St Cuthbert's Mill was a paper I'd never even heard of before - Millford Watercolour Paper. The notes in the package said it was designed to replace the discontinued Whatman Watercolour Paper, which ceased production in the 1980s. I was curious about this because we use Whatman filter paper, chromatography paper etc day in day out in my research laboratory. I've since done some reading, so here's a little history lesson for you!

The Whatman Paper History
Waaaaaay back, about 1750, Mr Whatman (or probably one of his staff) discovered a new way to make paper using a super-fine mesh that created a smooth paper without impressions from the mesh. This was the first of the modern printmaking papers - remember that back then, watercolour paper didn't really exist yet. Mr Whatman noticed that since the paper was lovely and smooth, he could impress things into the wet paper - like sheets of felt or hot metal rollers - to create pressed paper or rolled paper. These lead to the cold press and hot press papers we all know and love, though they were "printmaking paper" or "drawing paper" at that time. Sizing then started to be added and what Mr Whatman is usually credited with is the hard size - this being at the time made of gelatin cross-linked with aluminium potassium sulfate (potash alum aka alum) - alum connects gelatin chains together, making a gel that, when it dries out, is nice and hard and, importantly, holds back water for quite a long time. This was obviously popular with the watercolour painters of the day! Nowadays, there's a bit of an issue with potash alum with regard to archival properties - so synthetic sizes often get used, or are made with strong buffers to get the pH stable.

So what was modern Whatman paper?
As I understand it, it was a heavily sized, cotton-and-linen rag paper with a strong gelatin sizing both internally and surface sized too, which makes the paint float on the paper for a really long time. This means that:

• Washes sit on the paper for a really long time before drying, so you can play with them for a long while.
• Even staining-colours can be lifted because the sizing is so strong.
• Because the paint sits on the surface and doesn't soak in, it retains full colour and has wonderful luminosity and glow.

How does Millford paper compare?

Millford only comes in 300gsm (140lb) cold-press paper in the form of Imperial, Half Imperial and Quarter Imperial sheets [US readers can buy it here], which is quite limiting. So I am told, St Cuthbert's Mill have actually obtained Whatman's recipe, so what they make is pretty similar, and it has really good reviews. 

I decided to compare it with all of my other papers in stock at the moment and with both granulating mineral-based paints and with light-stain and heavy-stain dye-based paints. This is what I'm going to test:

• How long washes sit on the paper and how different they are when they dry.
• How well the 3 different colour types lift, both immediately and after drying totally.
• How the paper responds to masking fluid (heavy sizing should making this easy to remove and use).

I'll be posting a video and blog post of my findings tomorrow!