Surfaces - What do you work on in your sessions

[Michael Georges]

When you go to Open Studio or Life Drawing or Painting sessions - What surface do you like to work on?

For charcoal, for watercolor, for oils?

What are your favorite papers, canvases, or do you prepare your own boards?

This week, I worked in charcoal on just vellum sketch paper - kinda cheap and not a very good surface for charcoal. After, I went to the local art store and discovered an amazing variety of papers to select from - I could go a year or more and not use the same stuff twice there were so many different types.

I bought some Arches watercolor paper for my next session. It will still be used for charcoal, but it has more tooth and it is a higher quality paper.

[Chris Saper]

Hi Michael,

For charcoal work I like Canson gray; for conte, a Canson cream; on both I use the smooth side since I don't like the regular screen-like texture the rough side has.

For water-based oil (transparent monochrome) I use Utrecht's acrylic primed linen. For regular oil, I'll either use a cheap acrylic-primed cotton duck or my treasured, hand-mounted oil-primed linen.

So I guess I am saying that (for the most part) I use the same grade and type of materials I would use in a commission piece. To me, gaining practice with materials that behave differently from what you regularly work on limits the value of the practice. This makes sense to me for a couple of reasons: I rarely have any interest in keeping the oils, so I most frequently wipe them down at the end of open studio. (The plus is, of course, that they're already toned for the next time.) My learning occurs at the easel, not afterward. The Canson is cheap, and it can't be re-used, but I have more frequently kept the result at the end of a session than I have the oils.

If I work in pastel I'll grab some Canson; The Wallis is too expensive, even though it is presumably re-usable. Even when I go to life drawing, I'll use good quality paper, not newsprint. I can't count the number of times I have done work I'd like to keep, and it has rotted on the newsprint it's on.

The times I've used watercolor in open studio are generally too stressful to want to remember (maybe I'll post one if I get the strength), but I used the same cold-pressed paper I would regularly use. The watercolor papers are so very different in their behavior that you need to become familiar with each.

All of this being said, I also see open studio as the time to experiment! So you should do that, too!

[Michael Georges]

Chris: Interesting choices. I am not yet at the wipe it off at the end of the session stage, but I am getting there.

I now understand why people use charcoal and pastel paper specifically - it really does make a difference. I tried yesterday on Arches watercolor paper and the results were "not quite nice". So I went to the nearby art store and got some Fabrino Ingres charcoal and drawing paper and boy did that make a difference.

The thing I notice in cheaper papers is that it is really hard to get darks to stick. You go over it once and it is somewhat dark - you go over it again and what you put down the first time just falls off the paper. This Fabrino paper was nice because it wiped off cleaner, and your first stroke stayed in when you put your second down - thus, I was able to build values incrementally.

Re: Watercolor. I saw several people struggling with watercolor at the classes I have been to. They too seemed frustrated. There was one guy who really had it down and was doing quite nice work from it. I would think it would be quite difficult.

[Michele Rushworth]

I've never tried watercolor in open studio sessions though I was primarily a watercolorist for ten years or so. I always used Arches 300 pound paper because I loved the natural texture, the handmade deckle edge and the weight of it meant I never had to stretch it.

For the several hundred portraits I did in pastel many years ago, I used Strathmore paper. I don't remember the name of the color but it was kind of a beige which was good for skintones.

In Open Studio sessions I've mostly used charcoal, conte or acrylics, all done years ago. Time to try an open studio session with oils one of these days!