Have tried it wet and dry, didn’t like it as a single medium but it works OK as an addition to a watercolor underpainting. You can put gesso or medium on watercolor paper to alter the surface if it’s 300 lb; do both sides or it’ll warp.

I’ve used it with watercolour underpainting, and as support for pastel primer.

If the wc paper is thick enough (like, 300), then it is supposed to do without stretching when using wet media, but in my humble opinion it still needs streching. When you use it dry, there’s no need to strech.

Cold press tends to have more structure, while hot press tends to be more smooth. There are at least 3 grades of texture to be had within each (hot or cold).

You can also sand down the ‘bumps’ on (dry) wc paper a bit. That will loosen some fibres (“comb” the paper), but that is an advantage, as pastels adhere much better.

I’ve always used Colourfix primer on watercolor paper. But I’ve often seen watercolorists use pastel accents on it and some of the cold press papers I’ve used would have enough tooth that they’d handle like plain paper – the Artagain or Mi-Tientes sort of thing. I wouldn’t try pastel on hot press without a primer though that might depend on brand and the actual surface of the paper. They vary a lot.

Hot press is the smoothest watercolor paper and will take priming without any competing texture interfering with the sanded primer. The problem is that sometimes hot press is too smooth and doesn’t hold pastels well. I would work differently on a surface like that and maybe stick to pastel pencils or hard sticks for a sketching sort of look, maybe with some soft blended areas for contrast. I wouldn’t expect to do much layering on it without a sanded primer.

One thing I wish I’d packed along when I moved is a partly complete pastel journal. I bought a wirebound watercolor-and-sketch journal at Blick and started systematically priming all the watercolor pages with different hues of Colourfix primer. The sketch paper they interleafed with the watercolor pages became barrier sheets for pastel paintings. I meant to use this journal for plein air and it’d be perfect here in San Francisco – but it’s in the boxes that are still back in Arkansas.

I might try something similar cutting up glassine though and taping it to the ends of sheets in one of the watercolor journals I have here. Don’t have the full range of Colourfix primers any more but I could at least prepare pages for painting on site with watercolor to tone them. Or do some pages with watercolor underpainting on the spot, even if it’d take two visits to the same place to do the piece totally plein air.

Michele,

If you want to see work done on watercolor paper, look up Sally Strand. She often uses watercolor paper for her work. She does wet it and staple it, and then does a watercolor underpainting. I believe she uses Arches cold press, 140 lb., and it has a fair amount of texture to it. Sally has a technique that uses lots of layering of pastel, and the watercolor paper works beautifully for her without any additional sanded grounds. I have taken her “Color of Light” workshop twice (yes, it was THAT good) and used watercolor paper and pastel. It is definitely different than working on sanded paper, but it does make for a beautiful painting! This technique works best with a little harder pastels – I like using Giraults – many use Rembrandts – saving the softies for the very end.

Lynn

Back in the day, when I bought my first set of pastels a uninformed salesperson told me that I needed to use w/c paper for pastels. it was good that I did not have much money then, as I could not buy very much paper. needless to say I didn’t have good results, and almost put down my pastels for good. Fortunately a friend directed me to Canson MI (as it was the cheapest pastel paper) and encouraged me to try other supports that were made for pastels.

Today I do use w/c paper, but when it has been treated with Pumice Gel. I have also experimented with staining w/c paper with coffee and tea. As a result instead of bright white specks shining through the finished work (which looks very unnatural.) you have more natural earthy brown specks showing through, unifying the painting.

Hope this helps.
JD

If you are getting a honeycomb look to your pastels, then your paper is “NOT” surface – quite different to hot press, which is smooth and not bumpy and will not give you a honeycomb look.

Watercolour paper comes, usually, in three types of surface….rough, NOT (or CP, cold pressed …NOT means, literally, not hot pressed, and Hot pressed. Here is an official quote:
here are three main surface textures to watercolour papers, HP, CP (NOT) and Rough. HP stands for ‘hot pressed’ and is the smoothest paper suitable for high detail work. CP stands for ‘cold pressed’ (and is also known as NOT – as in ‘not hot pressed’) is a slightly textured surface and popular because it is suitable for most types of work. Finally, there is ‘rough’, which is exactly what its name suggests, suitable for landscapes, seascapes etc., where a heavily textured paper enhances the final piece of work

You only need to stretch watercolour paper if you intend to soak it……and even then, if you use very expensive, heavier weights of watercolor paper, you don’t even need to stretch those.
Jackie

J