A few years back I found a watercolor paper that I really liked: Winsor & Newton 140lb Hot Press. It’s not as slick and weirdly absorbent as other hot press papers I’ve tried, and not as toothy as your average cold press paper. The back side of the sheet has a semi-regular pattern (from drying on felt?) that’s different from the front side, but still pleasant. It takes ink fairly well too. I’ve found it to be excellent for making painted comics.

The downside: it’s hard to find, compared to Arches or Canson products. As of this writing most of the brick-and-mortar stores I contacted don’t carry it, and the online ones are out of stock—with no clear answer as to when they’ll have more. Update 8-17-10: I called the company I’d ordered the W&N paper from, and was told that it’s been temporarily discontinued; apparently they’re in the midst of changing paper manufacturers.

I decided to look for an alternative paper and ordered a selection of stuff from Dick Blick. Here are my notes on each paper—no scientific tests, just a quick reaction and scan to give a general idea of the paper’s characteristics. Hopefully this will be helpful to other people ordering these papers blind.

Lanaquarelle 140lb Hot Press

I liked this paper. Its surface has a very slight, pleasant tooth for hot press paper, and it doesn’t absorb the brushstrokes quite as quickly as other hot press papers I’ve tried. The back side looks to be smoother than the front. It also took pen and ink very well. I don’t do a lot of blotting, but it was pretty easy to blot up part of a fresh wash. I’d call this a good backup choice for my comics work.

Saunders Waterford 90lb Hot Press

This is a light, finely textured hot press paper, slightly creamy in color. My brushstrokes sank in quickly, and paint pooled on top and made unpredictable blooms. So it’s not suitable for the painted comics projects I have in mind. However it’s a terrific surface for pen and ink—the pen just glides over it. I could see doing a large-scale ink drawing on this with lots of crosshatching.

Winsor & Newton 140lb Cold Press

I would call this more of a “rough” surface—It was nice and crunchy, and would be great for drybrush. It’s not as great for pen and ink—the pen drags a bit on the surface—but still doable. Absorption seemed pretty slow, and I was able to blot up a fresh wash without too much effort. I don’t think it would work for the detail-oriented comics I’m painting now, but I liked the surface enough to keep it in mind for other paintings.

Strathmore Series 500 140lb Hot Press

This paper had more of a machine-made feel to its surface than the other papers, though I don’t know if it is. It took the pen and ink well, and didn’t absorb brushstrokes too quickly. Might be better with gouache—it would have just enough tooth to do some drybrush.

Fabriano Artistico Extra White 140lb Soft Press

“Soft Press” is Fabriano’s surface midway between cold press and hot press. This was the paper I’d hoped would most closely approximate the W&N paper, and so it did. It’s toothier, and the surface seems harder (more sizing?) when drawing on it with the pen. But the washes dry at about the same rate as the W&N stuff, and without any blooms.

Many thanks to the folks at Johnson Paint in Boston for the lead. Of course, this is another speciality paper that’s hard to find in stores. But at least I have two options to pick from now.

Here’s a gouache painting of Micki from Smithson. The spiral shape was a recurring visual motif; it showed up as a big sculpture in the middle of campus (which all the students sat on, naturally) and on a pachinko machine in one episode.

Someday I might make a post featuring all the appearances of another visual motif, a guy with big sideburns that I would put into the foreground of crowd scenes to establish depth. (I called him Ray Poussoir.)

Here’s my entry for Jason Turner’s Page 100 Project, adapted from Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. Click on the image to see a larger version that’s probably twice as confusing. And do click through to his website to see the other pages people have created.

Here I tried my hand at re-designing some Smithson characters, in gouache and ink. This is from a while back; now I’d go a little lighter with the gouache washes. Hey, that’s fun to say.