Hot and cold pressed paper - All you need to know

When I first heard that certain papers came as either hot or cold pressed My little brain went off and away envisioning paper being held under blocks of ice against it's free will, then I realised that was probably my ADHD.

The ground that we lay our artwork on simply means the paper type, canvas, or drafting film, to name but a few. For example my last piece was done on 300 gsm (that's the thickness) arches watercolour hot pressed paper. Whatever you use as your ground expect to buy it the most frequently out of all the materials you use, so ensuring you are confident with your choice is essential.

Of course finding the right base for your work means trial and error, I recently bought some pastel mat and of course choose to trial it on a pet portrait it did not go well, in fact we haven't spoken since, I may allow it back into my life but we are on a break for now!

We will discuss paper weights, brands, pros and cons on a later blog post, for now we have a date with a Furness and an iceberg.

Cold pressed paper

Doesn't really go any where near the north pole or anything exciting, it is made by pressing the sheet through cold rollers, this means that the surface has more tooth (also referred to as texture or grain), for the sake of dry mediums (pastels, charcoal, coloured pencils and graphite) you can add many more layers than smoother paper, but your work may have a slightly grainy look if not worked enough.

Hot Pressed paper

So this one is obvious right, it's paper slightly toasted on an open fire, no it's just hot metal rollers, less grain, tooth, textured whatever you wish to call it means less layers,  I use hot pressed paper a lot on my pet portraits, for example a black dog has layers of blue, brown or purple, shades of grey to make the appearance of black that isn't flat, this means layers and lots of them the arches paper I use always me to do this.

Not paper (oh yes it is)

Before I locate another coffee the art world loves to throw the odd spanner in the works, the 'Not' paper comes from my home country England whilst everyone referred to cold pressed as that we called it 'Not' because it was not hot pressed, and you now find it as that in many online stores.

Rough Paper (didn't make an effort)

Yes another type, this is the roughest paper you've ever seen! It is pressed between sheets of textured felt as it dries. This means loads of layers, but it will eat your coloured pencils alive. The colour application isn't consistent and therefore not recommended for highly detailed work. Your pencils shouldn't have to climb mount Everest whilst trying to do a straight line.

Have a great week and don't forget to let you creativity run wild! (probably don't go riding an elephant in a super market though).

Vicky x