There's a New Paper in Town - The Collection

 

Hahnemühle has just released a new line of paper that sets new standards for high-quality watercolor paper. No matter your watercolor skill or level, there is a paper for you in this set called The Collection. Cold pressed, hot pressed and rough all come in sheets and blocks depending on your preference. The Hahnemühle website describes The Collection using phrases like: unparalleled quality, prized cotton papers, durable paper surface, fibres do not lift, rub off or loosen, vegan, resistant to ageing and acid-free. A superb all around paper. So what to do, what to do? And though The Collection is called a 'watercolor' paper - don't let that limit what you do. Let me show you some of the various media I've tried and been successful with. 

I began with an ultra fine Sharpie and drew my florals. I don't really know a lot about legit watercoloring but I would really like to learn. I began the background by liberally brushing water over the entire background area. I am talking about a lot of water, then I started laying in color. I used my brush to push and pull color into the areas I wanted it to be in. I believe this is called a wet on wet technique. And let it dry. I loved it!

Next I painted the flowers - leaving those areas dry until I added the paint. Once the flowers and leaves were dry I went back over all the lines with the same Sharpie and added white details with a Sharpie paint pen. 

The paper held up great! No pilling, no warping. Just fun color and my very first ever watercolor painting. 

This painting began the same way - by drawing with an ultra fine Sharpie. Just a basic outline of my flowers, stems and leaves. 

The flowers were painted first using a decent amount of water. I painted the Opera pink color on the outer tips of the petals and let the water pull the color in. I love it!

Next I painted the background using a lot less water than the first painting. Mostly wet paint working on a dry surface. Once everything was completely dry I went back over all the lines and defined them better with the Sharpie. 

Not a rough workout for my Collection paper and I had no issues. This paper is a champ. 

I followed the same process with this piece. Draw, paint the flowers using less water this time, then the background. I used a decent amount of water on that background, adding more here and there where needed as I worked. The flowers themselves didn't really take a lot of water, just mostly paint. Then a redefining of lines and some white highlights with the Sharpie paint pen. 

Easy page and it came together well. 

Up to this point I had worked strictly with watercolor paints. But . . . just because this is watercolor paper doesn't mean that is all you can use it for. I began this painting by monoprinting - or gelli printing - the entire background. First time I ever gel printed on a block of paper and it worked great! Acrylic paint was used for the gel print lift. I drew the flowers with the Sharpie and left the petals without added color. What you see in the petals is the acrylic gel print. I did use watercolor to fill in the circles and the background. Not pre-wet, just paint using the water on the brush. I am sure that has a name. Once dry, I used the fine tip sharpie to go back over the outer lines, and the ultra fine to give detail to the petals. A white Sharpie paint pen was used for detail work. So acrylic paint, watercolor paint, Sharpie and a paint pen. And they all worked great on The Collection paper. 

I thought the gel print in the last piece of art could have been more defined, so I made another piece. This one started with a pink, blue and white monoprint right onto the block of Collection paper. It worked great! This paper has some texture - it is cold pressed - but the gel print worked great! Acrylic paint - you can see it very well in the petals of the flowers. I did not add any color to those petals - that is all from the gel print lift I started with. To that I drew  my flowers and added watercolor paint to the centers and on the background which I had pre-wet. The wording is from stamps. I had a little hand wobble with that bottom one. Oops! My white Sharpie paint pen is almost empty and I am having major trouble finding another with the extra fine point. I love this page so much! Bright and happy!

I know I have a lot to learn but I am having so much fun with these paintings!

I used a 4" round gelli plate and made my prints directly onto this background. Probably six times to cover the entire page. The flowers were watercolored. Last I went over all the lines again to define them and added the white highlights. This piece was mostly acrylic paint, with a little watercolor over it. That process worked like a dream on this paper. 

Then I got a little crazy. Hahahahahaha! I got some new product in the mail from The Crafter's Workshop. Little pots of Stencil Butter. You need some! This was my first attempt at scraping the stencil butter over a stencil and onto my paper. Not perfect at all but I think it is great! Lots of shimmer. This butter works similarly to texture paste - just prettier. And because of the way I scraped it on these dots are as tall as the width of my stencil. Just overlook all those places where the stencil butter scooted under the stencil because I didn't have it taped down well enough. 

I got up this morning and tried it again. Those places where it looks like waves in the paper - those are waves in the paper. To make this page I removed the paper from the block and had it taped big time to my desktop. Then I taped the stencil down over it. I really believed the paper would stay super flat. It did not. I was surprised. You don't use water with these stencil butters. It is just a paste like cream scraped over the paper. I should point out, though, the page dried completely flat so this was a short term issue. I figured I could have better control with a smaller piece of paper. 

So I removed a sheet from the block and cut it into four pieces. And I did the same process of taping the paper and the stencil to the desktop before I used my stencil butter. This worked much better and the paper's integrity held up. No warping. Just flat happy paper with some awesome shimmery beautiful dots. I still had that one place where the color ran under my stencil. 

Perfect! This piece worked great! Those little bits of strands here and there you see are from me dropping the stencil back onto the paper when I was removing it. Eek! Otherwise this piece is perfect!

Of course I had to play a little with some steampunk. Still using the stencil butters. I didn't get any boring colors like brown or rust or black for steampunk parts in my shipment, so I used some yellow and purple and made my own rusty bits and parts. And I have figured out the right amount of butter to use as I scrape across the paper with my palette knife. Perfection! This piece is going into one of my daily journal pages. 

And for my last piece I turned to my trusty Dylusions Ink Sprays. My favorite art supply ever. Just two colors and a boat load of water on this piece of paper. Before I finished I had five layers of ink and a whole lot of water. I am totally going to tangle a garden on this piece. I did one thing different on this piece. I used the back side of the Collection cold pressed paper. It seems a little less textured on the back side and I like tangling with fine tip technical pens on a less textured paper. 

The Collection is sold as a watercolor paper but it is also so much more! Watercolor, acrylic paint, ink, paste, markers, pens, paint pens - they all worked great. The blocks come with ten sheets of paper. That's ten sheets you can create beautiful on to enjoy! I already have an idea for my next project. Time to get back to work.

The Collection can be purchased by clicking here.