how to prep watercolor paper by soaking, taping and stretching

I wanted to explain one way how to soak, tape and stretch watercolor paper to a board so that the paper will not buckle when you paint on it.

Here is the short version:

1. soak the sheet in water for 10 minutes;
2. remove sheet from water, gently shake off excess water for about 30 seconds;
3. place sheet on horizontally-disposed board;
4. after putting tape under tap to wet the adhesive, apply tape over both outer edge
    portion ( ¾" margin will do it) of paper and board;
5. gently remove excess water pooled on paper surface with absorbent paper towel; and
6. place board w. paper in horizontal disposition and let dry (over night or equivalent).

Also describing what I have been and am up to, here is the verbose version:

I intend to do three watercolor paintings next week (while I am working on some oil paintings and doing some creative writing). Because I use an inordinate amount of water when I paint with watercolors (my working area becomes like a flood zone), it is usually wise for me to soak and tape the watercolor paper to a board so that it dries nicely-stretched and there is no buckling issue when I paint.

I still do some paintings without soaking, taping and stretching, but I find the overall process so much easier when I do not to have to worry about buckling or watching my water usage.

I also have found that, because watercolor is so unforgiving, it is really important (for reducing the failure percentage) for me to do a relatively detailed line sketch before I start the work and THEN HAVE THE SKETCH TRANSFERRED ONTO THE PAPER before the soaking and stretching. I think that most people just soak the paper, stretch it and then do their thing on it, and that is fine (whatever works or is comfortable, do it) BUT: generally, for me and what I have heard from other people who paint in watercolor, is that their biggest obstacle to finishing a work is not being able to get around a mistake that they could not correct. My experience has been that if one gets the composition figured out, and the outline onto the paper, before starting anything else, the risk of failure is reduced by as much (in my case) 75 per cent.

You still get to express your creativity in the sketching and compositional phase even though it is being separated to a large extent from the painting process. DIVIDE AND CONQUER is a good strategy for watercolor painting.

So, with the current projects in mind for next week (October 14th to 20th), I first free-hand sketched three drawings on 12" by 16" ruler-lined sections of large newsprint. How a person sketches is personal, of course. I tend to draw using shape, contour outline and negative space (helps me with proportion) lightly in pencil, and then, going back and pressing down, really heavily with a 4B. (The best and easiest books I know about learning how to draw are written by Betty Edwards, including ‘Drawing with The Right Side of the Brain’ and ‘Drawing on the Artist Within’. Either one of those books will do it for anyone who wants to learn how to draw . . . something anyone can do.)

I use newsprint for the initial sketch because the newsprint lets me draw more freely, knowing that I can resolve any problem with an eraser or the garbage can without any tears. (If I lose a sheet of watercolor paper, I feel as if I have lost a child.)

Here are the three sketches I am going to paint (or begin to paint) next week. All three are from photographs, I took while walking along a Toronto street. (I don’t always sketch from photographs, but I find it really helpful sometimes in the case of watercolors because it gives you a good reference for working in the studio. ) One (the bike) was taken after a snowfall in winter, and the other two were taken about a month ago when I was walking near College and Spadina.

　

 

　

After doing the sketches, the next step for me was to transfer them to the watercolor paper and, to do that, I used tracing paper. The tracing paper process is somewhat tedious, but I find that after a day of doing three sketches like the above, I am pretty brain dead so it does not matter. Regarding paper, I habitually use either 140 lb Fluid, 140 lb Bockingford or 140 lb Arches (all cold-pressed rough), for this particular size of painting. I have never had any problem with any of these brands and I am pretty tough on paper sometimes. (There are some brands that I cannot use because they seem to disintegrate for me, but I know other people who do use those brands and swear by them. Paper is personal so try as many as you can until you find the one you like.) So after transferring the drawings to watercolor paper, I then placed them on the three boards just to make sure they were sized correctly. Here is a photograph of the three sheets on the three boards (ready for soaking and stretching):

　

　

　

　

IMPORTANT NOTE: IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THE BOARDS BE DRY BEFORE YOU USE THEM FOR THIS PURPOSE BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE USED THE BOARDS BEFORE FOR STRETCHING PAPER, THEY WILL HAVE RESIDUAL GLUE AND THAT GLUE, IF YOUR BOARD IS STILL WET, CAN WRECK HAVOC ON WET PAPER THAT IS PLACED ON TOP OF IT FOR TAPING AND STRETCHING. There is no problem as long as the boards are dry though. I have been using these same boards upteen times for several years. (I always let a board dry overnight before I use it for another painting and I have never had a problem. I have seen firsthand, however, problems that other people have had where the board was not dried before application.)

I have found that the paper stretches and holds with a ¾ inch margin beyond the border for the painting . . . at least the way that I paint and the size of painting that I paint. Many people use a bigger margin than that. I have had no problem with the ¾ inch.

Anyway, the next step was the soaking.

　

　

I poured enough water into a tub to cover the paper and then I placed the paper into the tub and let it sit immersed for 10 minutes. (If you let it sit for too long, like say 20 minutes, you risk the paper becoming spongy and losing its resiliency to reassert enough tightness upon drying. 10 minutes seems to work perfectly.) I did one sheet at a time. With each sheet, after ten minutes, I took the sheet out of the tub and held it vertically various ways, lightly shaking it, for about 30 seconds total so that some of the excess water drained off. I then placed the still really wet sheet onto the board. Nothing earth shattering, here is a picture of the wet paper placed on the board after the 30 second drip-off.

　

　

　
(This part of the process, some people do it differently. Most people, who I know who do this, hang the paper vertically using clothes pegs or the like for five minutes to let the excess water drain. I do not do this because I find that the water accumulates within the paper unevenly (due to gravity), and this unevenness can affect (and, for me, has affected) how the paper has dried and stretched, so that I noticed the unevenness while I was painting or, even worse, had an instance where there was a slight permanent buckling in a corner of the paper despite that the paper being had been stretched and taped. I should say, however, that usually, after hanging the paper with pegs for five minutes and then putting it on the paper, there is no such problem. But I have had this problem and that is why I don’t drain out the excess water by hanging anymore. Instead, I leave most of the excess on before I apply the tape so that paper remains evenly saturated.)

　

　

Once the paper was on the board, I put wetted (inexpensive) packing tape around its edge portions securing the paper to the board. THEN I DEALT WITH THE EXCESSIVE WATER ISSUE by using a paper towel by patting off the excess water. Patting is so easy and takes about five seconds. Here is a photograph of my hand with the paper towel.

　
　

Having finished the soaking, taping and removal of excess water, I then placed the boards with the watercolor paper in a place where they could maintain a horizontal disposition so that the sheets of paper could dry evenly. At the end of the process, I had three nicely stretched sheets of paper with sketches already on them.

Here are two of the three watercolor-paper sketches for the paintings:

　

 

 

 

　

As a final note, for each sheet, the process of soaking and taping took about fifteen minutes total. Of course, the way and order that I do the sketching took a lot longer (a day and a half for all three works). You don’t have to sketch before soaking, however. That is just a personal choice.

My hope is that, by explaining this process, it will help someone who is learning, but whatever or however a person does a work of art, it should be personal.  A person should try anything and everything with watercolor to see what works best for them personally.