If you ask an artist which is the best paper for colored pencils, you will probably get a variety of answers. And that is absolutely normal because every artist has a unique approach to the art, and every paper will give you different look to your artwork.
But the luckily answer you will get in this article and on the end you will know which is the best paper for colored pencils. You will know to recognize good from bad paper, and hopefully you will not have to think about it again. You will have more time to spend on your artworks, rather than spending time which paper I need to create artwork. And you must be aware that right paper is the foundation of every artwork, and you must take this serious.
When you buying paper for colored pencils it is everything about testing, you must test which fits best to you. But on the other side that is time and money consuming, so why not to get the best paper for colored pencils in the first pick.
You must learn what qualities good paper for colored pencils have, what you must avoid and what is must have. Does differences will lead you to pick your paper for colored pencils. And there are few major factors that you must take into considering, factors that tells you if have correct paper.
Qualities of Best Paper for Colored Pencils
- Paper Weight – there are different kinds of paper on the market, and one the most important factors is the weight of the paper. The rule is that lighter drawing paper is more like sketch paper, something that you will use for sharpening your drawing skills. And heavier are for your artworks on which you will spend maybe 12 hours, with layering and erasing. The paper that can handle all those actions, and on the end will still look perfect. Bellow you can see which range of weight gives us best paper for colored pencils, everything that is green is great.
[alert-warning]20 lb – 50 lb This is office paper, for printers and similar things. You should avoid them for drawings.[/alert-warning]
[alert-announce]50lb – 60 lb This range of paper is perfect for drawing practicing with pencils, charcoals, colored pencils. But every heavier task with multilayering will destroy this paper. [/alert-announce]
[alert-success]70lb -80 lb With this weight you can be sure that you have the best paper for colored pencils, everything in this range is great for you drawings. Be aware if you use this paper for watercolors paintings, then is possible that colors will see through underneath [/alert-success]
[alert-success]90lb – 110 lb If you wish to get some extra quality for you drawings, then this range is best of best. This heavy-weight paper is good enough to hold even watercolors, charcoals, acrylics. With this paperweight you can’t miss, only get. [/alert-success]
Read next: Best Colored Pencils
Paper tooth – Variety of different “paper tooths” ( the surface feel of paper is called paper tooth) may be confusing, but it is important to understand what you will get with “paper tooth”. With every weight, you also pick what kind of surface you want, because if you use the wrong one your artwork will not look the way you plan it.
There are differences among paper for graphite pencil paper and paper for colored pencils, for a pencil you will need sturdy paper, and smooth. The thing is if you wish to blend your pencil drawing with stumps and tortillions, then this kind of paper is perfect for those actions. The roughness of paper we get by the different process of manufacturing, there are two ways making a paper.
The first way is cold press which creates a rough surface of the paper, and that is good for colored pencils drawings. And many others mediums like watercolors, because you have big control during painting. Big “tooth” on those papers allow us to do many layers on it because we have a lot of space inside of “tooth” to fill with colored pencils.
The second way of manufacturing paper is hot press, which give us a smooth paper with much less “tooth”. This is a paper that we mention before for graphite pencils drawing, and also is good for technical drawings. Interesting is that this paper is not so good for colored pencils, and that is all because of the “tooth” we mention before.
With less roughness, we get fewer layers, and for colored pencils technique layering is crucial. But in some cases it is perfect even for colored pencils, later in post you will find out why.
Recommended Best Paper for Colored Pencils
We have now come to the point to choose the best paper for colored pencil, but even now when we know that we must look for the weight and the tooth there is one more thing.
The personal touch of every artist is not the same, every artist uses different pressure on the paper. Maybe you will have a heavy hand, and that means fewer layers. Or light hand, and that means you will do your artwork with more layers. So this is a point where you must ask yourself am I a heavy player or light player.
The point is that if you have light pressure then recommend paper for you would be paper with more tooth, that would be paper made with a cold press.
If you have heavy hand then you will probably use fewer layers, then recommend paper for you would be paper with less tooth. That would be paper made with a hot press, and now you probably think what is the trick. Because we mention before that this kind of paper is not good for colored pencils, but the thing is that depends on you and your pressure on the paper.
[table id=2 /]
