How to stretch watercolour paper
Have you ever tried laying a background watercolour wash only to find that the paper buckles up with the water, creating pools of water and pigment in some areas, and peaks in others? Do you find that your paper doesn't sit flat even once all the paint has dried? Paper expands when it gets wet, and shrinks as it dries, but stretching watercolour paper prior to use can fix this problem. Have you tried stretching watercolour paper in the past, only to find that your stretching
The virtues of making your own colour charts
Why should you bother making your own colour charts and mixing charts? Why not just use the ones supplied by the manufacturer? Anyone who's visited my studio will see the walls covered in colour swatch charts of different media (see an example of some of them in Fig. 1). In fact, whenever I start a new medium, or a new brand within a medium, or a new style of application within a medium, I draw up a colour chart for it. Despite whether I have a perfectly good colour chart sup
