VIDEO: Wendy Hollender compares watercolor papers for botanical drawing

Following on from yesterday's post (see ​VIDEO: Lizzie Harper compares painting on different watercolour papers), Wendy Hollender contacted me to tell me she had also produced a video about testing different papers. ​

Still from video where Wendy displays her baseline "gold standard" sample - from the OLD version of Fabriano Artistico HP 140lb - which she has decided must be replaced

Her video (and blog post) display

• her "baseline" comparison of OLD Fabriano Artistico HP 140lb (which has now changed and hence needs to be replaced)

PLUS a different set of papers from those tested by Lizzie Harper (with some overlap)

• Stillman & Birn Zeta (pad style)
• Fluid 
• Stonehenge Aqua Paper made by Legion (two samples)
• the new Fabriano Artistico paper
• Saunders Waterford High White (the new paper)
• Arches HP paper
• Canson L'Acquerelle HP paper

Some comments on the video before you watch it:

• Wendy does not paint during the videos.
• Primarily she is a coloured pencil artist who uses watercolour as an underpainting. It needs to be stressed that her paper is used for mixed media work using both watercolour and coloured pencil.
• Her purpose in doing the video was to find a good quality paper for the sketchbooks she makes for her students to purchase.
• She excluded all the papers she decided she could not work with - so if a paper is not in the above list you may think it was not liked. There again it might not have been tested!
• Wendy shows the sample papers she has tested and the images she created - but you don;t get a good look at them (see her accompanying blog post for a much better look - below)
• At the end of the video she recommends the paper she decided was going to work best - and explains why.​

Perhaps the most important conclusion she makes is that taking time to get to know a paper properly is necessary if you really want to make a proper assessment.  In other words she could work with all the papers in the list if she adjusted how she worked.

So here's the video (which you can also view bigger via YouTube - click the YouTube bottom right in the video when you start it).

Her blog post provides more details about Evaluating Hotpressed watercolor papers for botanical drawing. It covers:

• her requirements of botanical art paper
• ​​a composite image of all the different sample pages 
• her recommended paper - and a description of it
• images of all the samples of papers she tried and could work with

Remember all the images have watercolour under-paintings and then coloured pencil drawings.

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Both this video and the one from yesterday are now included on my page in the Education section about Paper for botanical artists. This also offers guidance on how to test paper.

The most important advice I have to offer is that only YOU can work out the best paper for your work. That's because everybody works slightly differently and what works best for one artist will not suit another.

So take your time and do some testing:

• be OPEN to trying new papers/types/brands/sides/weight;
• order complete sheets of a variety of papers to test;
• remember to try both sides;
• do try heavier weight papers that do NOT need stretching (wetting the paper releases size and changes the surface);
• do try Cold Pressed (NOT) as well as hot pressed - some outstanding botanical artists do all their work on NOT;
• try different ways of working e.g. adjust the way you work so as to work with the paper rather than against it.

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DO YOU HAVE A VIDEO OF YOUR PAPER TESTING?
If so, please do let me know.
If it adds value to the ongoing debate I'm happy to share it via this blog and my website.