Choosing Drawing Paper
Author:Carol Rosinski, Contributing Editor
| Paper is very important to you if you draw. Not only is it the support for your medium, it also effects the life, mood and quality of your drawing. There are a ton of different types of paper available. Each paper company has its own line of art papers. Each art paper has different grades. Each grade has different textures. It can be exhausting trying to figure out which paper is the best for your technique. I will try to present some basic facts about paper in this article and also tell you about my personal method for testing a piece of paper to see if it will work for my technique. (see images to the left) Hopefully, this discussion will help make the process of choosing your paper a little easier.
You are going to find, most commonly, three types of paper for drawing: cellulose, cotton and combination paper. Cellulose paper is made from wood pulp. Cotton paper is made from cotton fibers and combination paper is some combination of cellulose and cotton. Cellulose paper has an acid content that will destroy the paper over time. The more acid content it has, the shorter its life expectancy. To combat this problem, buffers are added to these papers. The buffers keep the acid from destroying the paper as quickly. Completely buffered papers are referred to as being PH neutral. Combination paper is usually referred to as having some percent of cotton rag content. The higher the cotton rag content is the longer life your paper will have. Cotton papers are 100% cotton. They are referred to as being 100% cotton rag. Not all cotton papers are equal in quality, though. Some cotton papers are made from the inferior shorter cotton fibers. When you work on these papers intensively, they can start to get fuzzy. Cotton papers made from the longest cotton fibers are the best. They can withstand lots of erasing and working without showing any wear at all. The life expectancy of 100% cotton paper is well over one hundred years. |
 Above: Paper test done on a rough surfaced paper. Notice the erased streak in the graduated area is still showing some smudges where it was the darkest. Very fine detail, as I am trying to draw in the little spheres, is not easily accomplished. This paper's grain would fight me if I were trying to draw a delicate flower. This type of surface may be beneficial to a landscape drawing or an animal portrait, however.
Above: Here is the same paper test done on a smooth surfaced paper. Notice how much more completely the graphite erases. Fine detail can be drawn with much less effort as you can see in the spheres. This paper would be perfect for a delicate portrait or a floral drawing. It may be a hindrance in any piece that contains a lot of black area though. The tooth is easily squashed when it is this fine so you must be very careful when darkening it to the fullest possible black. |
| To make things more confusing, each drawing medium uses specialized papers. There are pastel and charcoal papers. There are Bristol boards (good for pen and ink and graphite) and watercolor paper (used by both graphite and colored pencil artists). Each specialized paper has different grades, textures and tooth.
Any paper referred to as "student grade" is likely to be a cellulose paper. It may or may not have even been buffered in some way. Paper that is referred to as "good for most finished art work," or words to that effect, is usually a good buffered cellulose paper or an combination paper. Paper referred to as "Professional Grade" is usually a 100% cotton paper. The only way to know for sure, though, is to check. These are not absolute guidelines. As far as I can tell, each manufacturer has its own standards for its paper grades. You have to carefully check if you want to know for sure what your paper is made of. Most of the different specialized papers come in a variety of styles, too. Each one can come in different weights (thicknesses). Each paper can come in different textures (rough, vellum, plate, smooth, hot press). All papers have a "tooth" (that effects the ability the paper has to hold onto your medium) and that varies between styles also. So how do you know what will work for your medium? I will tell you how I do it. I collect samples of all the paper I can and then I test each one with my own personal testing technique (see images above) to see how it stands up. My medium is graphite but I think this test, or some version of it, would work for most mediums. I put each sample through the following tests. First I make a smooth graduation, in about the size of a quarter, that ranges from light to dark to test for smoothness. I can also tell how the tooth will hold onto my graphite with this test. Then I take an eraser through the patch I just made to see if it erases completely. Next I draw little three dimensional spheres to see how the paper can handle fine detail. If it passes the tests and is a cotton or combination paper, I am very happy to use it. The good news is, after all this confusion, that many paper companies will send you free samples. You can save yourself a small fortune by testing to see if the paper will work for you before you buy a whole sheet or pad of it. Explain to the paper company what your medium is and they will most likely send you a whole range of small paper samples in that line that are clearly labeled. Do your tests and save the samples for later reference. Happy Drawing, |
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