Colored papers work well with opaque watercolor pencils and paints. Because the pigment is transparent in many pencils and paints, the color of the paper shows through, suggesting mood or unifying your composition. There are several brands of watercolor paper with pale, soft color, both warm and cool. You also can work on the more vibrant, textured papers intended for pastels or printing.
JAZZMAN MCSHANN
Watercolor pencil on black Canson pastel paper
10" × 7" (25cm × 18cm)
In this painting of Kansas City jazz great Jay McShann, I used black, grainy, textured paper to capture the moody drama of the smoky clubs where he often played. I laid in the first layers of color pretty emphatically, pressing down fairly hard, and then wet them to blend. I used a pale vermilion, pink and a light blue in the shadow areas on his suit, white with pale blue shadows for his shirt and shades of burnt sienna, burnt ochre, brown ochre and white in the face. I let the black of the paper stand in for his hair, with just a bit of definition with dancing strokes of a very sharp white pencil. When those colors were dry, I went back in and restated with both wet and dry pencils—the dampened pencil points leave bold marks, as in the highlights on his hair, forehead and mouth, as well as the designs in his tie. A bit of white pencil, lightly applied and left dry just behind his head gives a bit of dimension to the background.
JANUARY 1
Ink, colored pencil and gouache on toned paper
9" × 12" (23cm × 30cm)
Working on toned paper lets you experiment with an almost three-dimensional effect. You can achieve this effect by laying in the darks with watercolor and adding lights with colored pencil, gouache (opaque watercolor) or white ink. Buy toned paper from your art supply store or tone your own. Either way, the effects are wonderful with watercolor.
Use whatever combination of mediums you need to get the effect you’re after—there’s no need to stay strictly with watercolor. Here, I chose a tan paper with a medium value. I did the initial drawing in my car with a technical pen. Later, at home, I added colored pencil and watercolor washes to capture the image in my mind.
SUNSET
Watercolor on Strathmore cold-pressed watercolor paper
5" × 7" (13cm × 18cm)
Using toned paper can also save you time when working under adverse conditions or when you want to create a mood quickly. Here, the winter sunset was fleeting and it was cold on the porch. I grabbed the pink-toned paper to give an undertone of sunset, then laid in quick wet-into-wet washes as the darkness gathered.