I started a year ago with two teachers who use hot press paper. I got so frustrated that I quit them and last month put away my gear, washed my bits of paint down the sink and gave up on watercolor all together. I ran across you and another lady that use cold press with lovely results and decided to try one more time. I cried with joy at the ease of working with cold press. If I had started with that I could have saved myself many months of disappointment. I'm excited to work with you on Patreon!
I'm glad you gave it a second try Linda. That's wonderful. I did a similar thing. I tried once and gave up because it was too difficult. I put my watercolour paints away for a few years but then I decided one day to give it a second try. The first time I think I was using cheap paper but the second time I bought myself some good paper. I'm so glad I did try again- it's now a huge part of my life and I don't know what I'd do without it. 💕
I've always used hot press paper, as I paint small detailed illustrations, and love it. However when painting larger elements hot press paper is very frustrating and doesn't look good.
I think this might be the best comparison I've seen on the two- many people have discussed the difference, but showing it side by side while painting the same thing on different textures was invaluable. Thanks!
I understood, perhaps mistakenly, that hot pressed paper was ideal for botanical paintings. I have no expertise on the matter whatsoever - can't even remember where I read or heard that. I could see the difference it made in your ease of painting. Cold pressed seemed more predictable than the "slippery" hot pressed. Great video Louise. Thank you for brightening my day.
Thank you so much for your extremely useful tutorial... one of the best explanation and comparison between cold and hot press art paper. I've always preferred cold press because of the paper texture. But after watching your video, I feel I also need some hot press in my stock. I personally feel that both papers are of equal utilization - depending on what style of painting and what you are painting. (Just my opinion) Thank you once again. 🥰
As full time professional artist and Bookbinder, I use ALOT of watercolor paper... for both Artwork and Binding. I only buy and use 100% cotton watercolor papers, and my absolute favorite is Saunders Waterford. I buy most of my watercolor paper in rolls, and in bulk orders of imperial sheets if rolls are not available for a specific brand, type or weight. I have noticed with Arches brand only, their hot press paper has changed in the past 2 years, and DRASTICALLY!!! Some of their 300gsm hot press will have big spots that resist paint and water to no end. But for the most part, their hot press is very absorbent at 1st, it dries extremely fast now! I have to put alot of coats of water on it, to get it to stay wet... their hot press almost acts like a sponge at 1st! Then when you are doing light washes, the paper looks like it is pilling up... it gets this very sloppy look to it, and it dries so fast! Their hot press literally dries 5 times faster, than their cold press paper! As soon as you lay a brush stroke down, it almost dries right up if you don't have your brush fully soaked with water! And light layers, and certain pigments look EXTREMELY washed out. Arches has changed hands in ownership recently, and their quality control has spiraled way out of control on sizing issues, mostly found with their hot press. I can not stand Arches hot press at all, I down right despise the stuff lol. Now Saunders Waterford hot press on the other hand, handles exactly how you described in this video. I get alot of people telling me how upset and displeased they are with Arches lately, and the messiness that goes on with their hot press papers, and sizing issues in general. I do love their hot press for pen and ink work, and colored pencil work on the other hand. With ink work, or playing around with gouache and heavier pigments, Arches is much more absorbent and dries faster than other brands. God knows I've got plenty of it, multiple rolls and tons of imperial sheets in different weights... I only buy it, because that's what people ask for in the goatskin Hardbound watercolor sketchbooks I make for their orders. Figured I'd throw my opinion in the bucket lol. Have a good one
I’ve been painting for 2/3 of my life now or more. (Considering mom getting me started with it as a kid!) she pains wet on dry, very meticulous. She has not painted now for many years and recently requested I get us some new paper as I have been working on projects. The options were overwhelming, and with out a tangible store to pick up sheets within many many miles, the choice to invest in paper online has been daunting. A commitment. This video, was by far and wide the best explanation and best comparison I could have ever had shared with me! Thank you for paying it forward and your joy is contagious to us other artists. My current painting is on Bristol board. Not conventional water color paper. I now understand that hot press is going to be where it’s at for my liking of surface!!! I also am going to try agave fiber. It will be fun to compare. Happy painting!!! And many thanks to you Louise.
Personally I love that a print shows the texture of the paper. Love the bloopers at the end. I get a great chuckle as I can so relate from doing videos for my aesthetic salon on skin care and make up. People who have not made homemade videos don’t realize the amount of work that goes into making a video. Take after take after take. Some days it seems like a breeze while other days it seems you just can’t get it right. You do an amazing job. I applaud you on how professional your videos are. 🎉
20 years ago I tried watercolors and gave up out of frustration. A friend encouraged me to try it again 6 months ago. RU-vid channels like yours make it much more fun and enjoyable! You make both cold and hot pressed look easy but I can see the differences. I think I will stick with cold press for a while. I’m loving the information you provide on every video. It is very clear and concise. Lisa, Virginia US
Oh wow that’s an interesting subject today. I would have never thought it would make much differences between the two papers but it does with certain things. I have only used cold press paper. I have yet to try hot press with watercolors. I have sketched with graphite pencils on hot pressed paper. I will definitely be keeping this in mind when I get to try Arches for the first time soon. Thanks for sharing this wonderful video.
Thank you for explaining and showing the differences. It makes me understand why and how colors react the way they do. I will continue with cold press till I get better. Love your out takes.
You are the BEST watercolor instructor and tip provider on RU-vid Louise! I am one of your biggest fans and appreciate all your hard work! Stay safe and thank you!
Thank you, Louise, for such a succinct explanation between hot/cold pressed paper. I watch several artists for advice and you are by far the easiest to understand when doing comparisons. I agree with another's comment. Your camera angle is awesome and truly allows me to visualize what my attempts should look like. You have a soothing sound and very sound advice. Thank you again. Vickie St. Louis MO U.S.A.
I love this comparison. I use both, but i use more hotpress. Hotpress stains the paper more and harder to lift; but for reproduction and detail (especially watercolor and ink), i 100% use hotpress. It is much more difficult to paint on, but does the things i need that cold press can't do. It'll all depend on your own needs. Agree that hotpress is for more advanced painters.
A very informative video on the differences. You can clearly see that it is harder to get a smooth wash on hot pressed paper. It is even more difficult with a larger area and with more water. The papers are made for different approaches and styles, Louse is a great instructor. Thank you!!
It is obvious for me that the cold press paper is easy to work and it looks better over all. Thank you for the demonstration ,very interesting and didactic, you are a real profesional teacher. ❤🎉❤.
Thank you so much Louise this was a fabulous experimental demonstration. I’m just begging on my watercolour journey. I’m physically disabled and have at random times spasm hands, not to be confused with jazz hands in dancing lol, I have no control over my spasm hands. So in that regard I feel watercolours will be more forgiving and less stress for my hands and arms than acrylic and I wouldn’t even entertain trying oils. I’ve always been a creative soul but only had a little play with watercolours through a hospital art program in Brisbane, I left that room soooooo relaxed. So this information is particularly helpful for me, I’m very grateful. I just love that you add your bloopers, thanks again 😊
Hi Louise, I am an artist living in Yamba and have been painting for 20 years I also use hot press and cold press for my work. Your information is very helpful for artists just starting out. When I teach I always start with the cold press 300gsm Arches it is very forgiving and gives good results.
Sure this video helped A LOT in understanding the difference between these two watercolour papers. I realize, I just purchased a stack of cold press. What a difference in the print and your suggestion is worth a million. Thank you! Beautiful paintings as an end result and I am hooked watching your every detailed explanation.
Oh my heavens… an ad showed up that was actually about art in a art related YT video. How amazing - it’s only taken them forever to get to this point. Or was this just a fluke. The ad was the DaVinci Eye app for using your phone to trace onto paper. Need to figure out better how it works but just so darn glad to not get some bizarre non related ad, I got excited. Wonder if anyone noticed it. Unfortunately, I didn’t watch it all the way to the end and I don’t think the YT channel owner gets paid unless we watch to them end. Not sure though.
Thanks for such a detailed explanation and comparison. The pace of your narration really enables digestion of the info. I wondered whether you had a tutorial on the process you use to convert artworks into printed form, i.e. greeting cards or larger A4 and A3. For example, if you use any resources like Adobe, type paper stock, type of printing process, etc? Thanks for your dedication 🙏
😅 o how I do love the bloopers. I orderd samples of Arches, Fabriano and Hanemüle paper to see the diffirence, I am curently using Canson, it's whats available here and not so pricy. I painted a Iris on the Hanemüle paper and I loved it, so I don't even want to know how awesome the other paper is going to be😄
I’m just trying hot press, and I feel like a beginner again. I’ve been confused about the amount of water for wetting the paper because it seems to just sit there. It also lifts a lot easier, which made it harder for me when I tried to blend. And just like cold press, there’s a difference in brands of hot press. I first used a small block of 100% cotton Fluid hot press, and it was awful. Then I purchased Fabriano, and much better! As everyone else has already said, your videos are some of the best. Thank you!
Louise, that was absolutely what I needed, after years messing around with watercolours, now that I'm retired I'm getting down to serious business. I purchased some Arches cold press recently, and am considering the hot press also when the lockdown ends here in France. Thanks a million for your gorgeous tutorials. 👍
Consider this old gringo a new fan! I admire your approach and how you break out different issues in a very palatable manner. I have been a film photographer for decades and oil/water painting on and off. With your channel, I am getting a lot of great information to quickly fill in gaps when trying to get the mental image onto paper. I see most of my watercolor images very similar to your style which is very helpful! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us all.
Hi Louise, I'm the beginner of Water color, happy to follow your youtube, it help me so much. You are a wonderful teacher. Thankyou again. The bloopers at the end is so funny
Your tutorials are so informative, every video I learn so much valuable information. Not only visually but verbally informative. Thank you so much watercolor is very tricky and every time I watch you I learn so much that isn’t really explained by anybody else.
Lol you have the best bloopers 😂the last bit had me actually laughing out loud as I can thoroughly relate. Plus your work is remarkably beautiful and your soft spoken voice is delightful to listen to. Great channel for valuable watercolor tips! Thank you for sharing your gifts with the world.
It's a very interesting video. I used the hot pressed paper without knowing its particularities and I found it difficult to work and I thought that I did not know how to use it! Now I understand my difficulties better and next time I will use cold pressed. Thank you Louise :)
I love the out-takes!! Especially “it sounds too posh!” That was hilarious 🤣 I didn’t realize how much work goes into these videos. This is probably the best hot press/ cold press demo. I’m like you, I like both and enjoy working on both. Can’t really say I have a favorite, but if I had to pick, it would be hot. Being able to use pen & ink & colored pencil on hot press bump it to the top of my list.
Thanks for the great side-by-side comparison. I've had a similar experience with hot press vs. cold. I've always worked on cold press. Then I worked on a commission and thought "oh, I'll just do this on hot press because I plan to make details/corrections with watercolor pencil if needed". Yikes!!! My heart dropped when I did some test painting on hot press. I had to quickly default back to cold press for the piece, because it was the difference of having the painting look like an experienced artist did it versus a child. Hot press showed every single brush stroke and the blending was not like cold press, at all. And this was on Arches paper, so it wasn't a matter of low-quality material. That said, I've just determined I need to learn some more and spend time painting on hot press only for a while to get more experience and more confident with how it behaves.
I think the word 'experienced' is the word you were so desperately looking for ('when I became more experienced') 😊 It's hard when you know there is a perfect word but you just can't seem to find it lol. Love the Bloopers and love the new Intro too FYI. Did I detect a hint of Birgit O'cconor inspiration with the moving the paper (not the paints) in washes? It's a technique I haven't seen you use before. I'm sure this video will be helpful to many!
Thank you for the link Louise I found that very informative. I actually started with hot pressed for no other reason than I happened to pick that pad up and I didnt know the difference. I am happy with my choice and as I like to draw my subjects first I prefer the smoothness in preference to the rough. I did think the pansy on the hot pressed paper look much brighter before you even mentioned it and I preferred the smooth crisp look of the hot over the textured cold. I think the cold took something away from the painting as the first thing you notice is the texture whereas in the hot it was the pansy which stood out. 🤗🥰😊 I also think your giraffe (which I also love to paint) and especially the cocky were stunning.
And thanks so much for sharing about the paper, it was very helpful. I was getting ready to go back to WCs (had used them briefly 40 years ago) and wondered which type of paper to use. I think I will start with cold pressed, and then try some hot later. Also can you talk about the selection of pads over blocks. It appears the blocks we don’t need to soak, dry and tape down the paper. Plus we paint with it on the block and don’t detach until you have finished the painting. It seems like it would soak through the paper and down the sides. But they have been around for a while, so maybe this isn’t an issue. Would still love to have a video on what colors and certainly which brushes to start with in terms of sizes and types. This is why we are so appreciative when artists tell us what they see using. I used really bad, what I call “dime store” brands before and they fell apart, didn’t hold a point or chisel - just made a mess the same as using cheap paint with little pigment and mostly binder/fillers etc - made mud, colors were disappointing wet and dry. So this time I want to use high quality ones because besides looking and performing much better, they also last longer as you just need a tiny bit of paint. And since I don’t have to worry about them drying out since they can be reactivated, I think it will be more budget friendly. But really good ones are expensive so I need to be careful and when you look at a color chart it is so difficult to decide what to choose - they are all so beautiful. So just trying to figure out which colors are the most important. Am looking for the primary process type colors like primary magenta, cyan, yellow which in the past I used for oils and acrylics but seem to be harder to find for WCs. But I want to be able to go cool and warm when mixing colors - just not sure what to get to be able to do a wide range of subjects. I also want to try and make myself concentrate on using these primary colors to work on color theory too. I think having a limited budget may force that issue as you can’t just go out and buy a tube of every pretty color you want. Can I just use acrylics and use medium instead of water. I have always been told too much water ruins the acrylics in terms of adhesion. Any experience - pros and cons of doing this? We could use some help on these subjects. Thank you for all your help. Those of us on tight budgets who can’t afford to add one more monthly charge appreciate the free advice. And do you know of any really good videos or “lessons” that help with learning brush strokes to get certain petals, or leaves, etc. in terms of practicing. I don’t want to look like a “one stroke” type of painter but in the past, I just slapped the brush on the paper. I would like to learn how to be more consistent so when I want a certain look to a leaf, I can express it as oppose to fighting each time to get say grasses, or geranium leaves to look similar to their natural look. Hopefully, that makes sense. And the same for flower petals. Not trying to be a botanical painter just want it to be recognizable as whatever I was trying to paint. And getting 3 of 10 isn’t acceptable - must be some sorta of guide. I see tons for these stylized forms of illustrative painting but they don’t look like real leaves or flowers either. Thanks.
I’ve always tangled between hot or cold pressed and it really comes down to personal preference. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. I prefer the cold pressed. Thanks again , Louisa.
Louise, the information you shared in this video is so interesting. I really appreciated learning the difference between the cold and the hot pressed paper. Thank you. Helene
Wow, what a great instructional video! So much detail in the comparisons is so useful...I am not even a watercolorist (so far!... mainly a potter, and dabbling in acrylic-pour painting) but you inspire me to try watercolors. I am subscribing now! Your voice is sweet... and I loved the 'outtakes' at the end. I'll start digging into your past videos now... and see if you have an etsy shop, I loved your giraffe!
