This month in my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon our theme is watercolour  and as I was recently sent two sketchbooks from Etchr (thanks Ania!)  I thought it would be a good time to revisit these books which contain 100% cotton paper. I was sent Etchr Sketchbooks  – a Square book 8″ in Hot Press and an A5 Portrait in Cold Press.

If you have followed this blog for a while you might know that I prefer sketching on wood pulp paper – such as Alpha – over 100% cotton. This goes against the common belief that 100% cotton is always better. But for the way that I like to work (sketching quickly and working into the wet in order to create texture without waiting for washes to dry) 100% cotton remains wet for too long. This image (from my Teacups course) shows the difference. Refer to this article for more thoughts on Alpha vs 100% Cotton.

I also find that the colours on cotton paper are duller.

I do actually love cotton paper – it just doesn’t suit my natural way of working! And as I love a good challenge,  it’s been really great to use these Etchr sketchbooks again. 

I’ve done a lot of experimenting and adjustment to my normal approach to watercolour and I’m happy to have worked out a way to get better results. This includes adjusting the water and pigment ratio and using different brushes – which I’ve shared in my weekly videos inside the community!

I’m also really loving doing mixed media in these sketchbooks.  When doing mixed media on Alpha paper I have to be careful not to work into wet areas at times as the paper is only 150gsm so a thicker paper means more freedom!

I decided not to officially do the 30×30 direct watercolour challenge but so far this month I have done 28 “start with watercolour” sketches – so I’m happy with that!

Here are some pages from these two sketchbooks. 

I’m hosting the monthly livestream this week inside the community when I’ll go through all the pages in these books and share more thoughts. If you would like to join us…find out more about the community and how to sign up here.

Finally…

I’m hosting a Group Self-Paced Version of my popular Sketchbook Design course – starting on 9 July. This will be a chance to work through the course over 9 weeks with an inspiring group of sketchers from around the world. It’s a few years since I hosted a group version for this course so this is a special event. And to celebrate, I’m releasing a few free Intro Lessons (available only until 10 July) – signup for these free lessons here.