A Meeting with Fabriano about Hot Press Paper

Left to right: Billy Showell SBA, Sandra Armitage President of the SBA, Gael Sellwood VPSBA, Dianne Sutherland SBA, ASBA and Elaine Searle ASBA blind testing watercolour papers at R.K. Burt & Co.

On Tuesday, a number of botanical artists using watercolour and coloured pencil met with the Marketing Director and Marketing Manager of Fabriano Paper at R.K Burt & Company - the paper importer who imports Fabriano paper into the UK.

The purpose of the meeting was to:

• enable Fabriano to understand better why so many artists have been experiencing issue with recent production of their hot press papers (Artistico and Classico 5) produced by Fabriano.
• promote a better understanding by artists of how paper is made - and how often - and the factors in normal production runs which can cause output to vary 
• compare the characteristics of other papers with those of Fabriano to enable the Fabriano mill to determine whether defined desirable characteristics are achievable. This was achieved via blind testing of a number of papers using simple tests involving a range of various commonly used techniques for applying, spreading and lifting media on hot press paper. This highlighted clearly the standards for different dimensions of functionality that a hot press paper must achieve to enable the production of top quality and very precise art. 

You can read a detailed write-up of the meeting in UPDATE #2: Fabriano Paper - a meeting and conclusions. There will also two more blog posts about the paper production process and the blind testing process.

Left to right: Polly O'Leary SBA, Sandrine Maugy SBA, Morryce Maddams UKCPS, Ann Swan SBA, UKCPS, Chiara Mediolo - Marketing Director, Fabriano and Giuseppe Prezioso - Head of Marketing for Fabriano

Fabriano came away with a very clear understanding that:

• botanical artists are very demanding when it comes to testing watercolour paper.
• the quality and performance of the watercolour paper they choose to use is vital to their production of such very high quality paintings!

We also concluded that it might be productive in future to do the blind testing in advance so that this can be more realistic in terms of the ways artists work - in terms of the number of layers of paint that can be applied and lifted and reworked.

The meeting was very positive and productive. However it's not going to produce a solution overnight. Indeed it might take quite some time. Fabriano will use the information from the meeting to start the process of addressing the issues raised by running a test at the end of July. This will use data collected from the meeting.

All parties came away feeling that it was now much more likely that Fabriano can develop improved production parameters and quality testing to ensure future production of their paper continues to be much loved by botanical artists and all other artists wanting precise control over their media of choice.

​I'll be providing further updates as and when there is more information on the progress made.