Inexpensive watercolor paper:
I ordered two very inexpensive, 100% cotton, watercolor papers from Amazon. These are Fyess, 120 piece, and Newbested, 100 piece, white watercolor paper. Both are 12×8 size. Newbested was 13.95 and Fyess was 13.99 at the time of this writing. I think these are exactly the same paper just with different names. There are several reasons I say this, but primarily it’s the color of the paper. Both packages contained lavender gray paper, rather than white. This is an important issue, as traditional watercolorists leave the white of the paper as their highlights and wherever white is needed. You will be disappointed in both of these brands because they are very obviously not white.
Since these two brands are, in my opinion, the same I’ll be reviewing both as one paper brand.
My preference is to use whatever I’m reviewing several times to become very familiar with it. I did many paintings using a variety of paints, brushes and techniques to put this paper through everything I could think of. We’ll begin with the cons.
The paper pills easily and quickly. It doesn’t actually like water. I had somewhat less disappointing results when I painted on dry paper and with less water/paint on my brushes.
There is no mixing of colors on the paper. By that I mean I like to drop color onto a wet leaf, for example. I’m used to my paint flowing and mingling with each other using this technique. Doesn’t happen on this paper.
Feathering is a huge issue with wet on wet techniques. It’s less on dry paper, but there is still some feathering. I’ve never experienced that level of feathering and I’ve used printer paper with watercolors upon occasion.
The paper is thin. The paint did not go through to the backside, but this is very thin, fragile paper. If I immediately removed the tape from the paper once a painting was finished, the paper’s first layer came off with the tape too. If I let the painting sit overnight taped to my board, I could remove the tape easily and without damage to the paper. This was true for both the smooth side and the textured side of this paper.
The pros are few. I was able to lift a bit. There seemed to be less buckling on paintings which weren’t taped down to my board as compared to some other paper brands used in the same way. I used other media on the paper, in addition to the watercolor paint, several times. I didn’t like the way my other supplies behaved on this paper either.
Several paintings were really carefully done. I used every skill in my “tool box” to make these paintings look great. A couple could be framed, I suppose, but for the most part it was a waste of time. There was very little I could do to correct or improve these pieces. Some have been cut into pieces for use in mixed media projects.
The reason I bought the paper was for practice, using new brushes or paints, experimenting with my supplies. Given I’ve been doing mixed media art, acrylic and watercolor painting for years and years, I have ample experience. If a beginner purchased this paper, my concern is they would become so frustrated with their experience they’d quit painting.
Watercolor paper can be very expensive. However, there are papers which are reasonably priced and give you acceptable results. Put watercolor paper in my sites search bar and you’ll see posts I’ve made about watercolor paper. The truth is, for watercolor painting the most important supply, by far, is the paper. It’s more important than the brushes you use or the paint you buy.
Rule of thumb; the higher the cotton content, the better. I prefer cold press paper, but hot press is also used often by watercolorists. I’ve used mixed media paper for watercolor painting, but I don’t like it as much as 140 lb. Watercolor paper. My everyday paper is Fabriano studio paper. Unfortunately I’m not able to link it for some reason. But I have liked all the Fabriano papers I’ve used. Arches is the “gold standard” readily available brand of watercolor paper. It’s expensive, but a dream to work on.
Purple Whimsie 