I dislike 'Hot Pressed' watercolour paper with a vengeance. Now don't get me wrong; because I don't regret buying the Daler Rowney Aquafine Smooth 'Hot Pressed' watercolour paper. Especially seeing that it was a 'buy one and get one free' promotion. Superb for a botanical watercolourist, but not much cop for the sweeping and extract landscapes of yours truly. Fair play, the paper is more like card, but the watercolour just dries too fast. So here I am on the morning of Day 4 of my current aspiring pastelist art course, and I'm quite happy to slap on some watercolour to a 16x12 inch sheet of the aforementioned 'Hot Press' in order to give myself a background for a pastel drawing later today. You can buy pastel paper and card, not pastel colours exactly (although they sell those as well) but colours suitable as backgrounds for pastel drawings. So that might include a dark brown, a dark blue, or a vibrant red. Those of you who are friends of mine on Social Media; will know that my current banner image is a Venice Scene on pastel paper in the style of Whistler, whereby the paper colour has been deliberately allowed to shine through. By applying watercolour to white paper or card, the artist can create colours for specific areas and then choose to (1) let that colour shine through, or (2) use that colour to reinforce the intensity of the top colour, or (3) use the watercolour to ensure that none of the white of the paper shines through where there's unintentional gaps in the pastel application or pastel falls away during transport or storage. So writes the man who knows nothing. Hey ho, the pigment calls, so I have to press on elsewhere. . .
