What kind of paper is good for sketching with graphite and colour penciling?

Answer 1

ARCHES cold pressed paper

Answer 2

There are different brands of paper all over the world, each one has been worked out for hundreds of years pretty well, so buy a local brand.

For charcoal you do not want a smooth paper but a paper with some "tooth" (texture) so the charcoal has some crevices to fill and bind with. Some paper pads are specifically marked "charcoal" and say "medium tooth".

Even then, you might want to buy a can of "workable fixative" to help keep the charcoal stck on the paper. Apply a thin coating, let it dry and repeat. Several thin coatings are better than one thick wet one. Avoid breathing the fumes from this can because it is an aerosol of plastic resin! Do it outdoors and wear at least a paper mask.

With colored pencil you can try a medium-tooth paper. You want the paper to be textured instead of smooth because with smooth paper, your pencils will only lay down one shade of that color, but if you have paper with texture, the shade depends on how hard you press the pencil. Brush lightly, you are only coloring the "tops of the mountains" in the texture and microscopically you leave a lot of white space, and so you get a light shade. Mash the pencil hard, it colors everything in its path and you get a dark shade. So that way, paper with texture expands your possible range of shading. The texture also breaks up your lines for a warmer appearance to the drawing.

You will also hear terms like "hot press" and "cold press". Hot press will create smooth paper but cold press preserves more roughness to the paper.

Answer 3

Best Graphite: Staedler Mars Lumograph Best Water Color Pencil: Derwent Inktense Best Colored Pencil: Prismacolor Best Eraser: The one that works! (A kneeded eraser (kinda like putty) is good, you'll need a black eraser for erasing colored pencils though, and a hard regular eraser is good for large areas.

Answer 4

I work mainly with Prismacolors and it was suggested to me to try Bristol board--similar in weight to cardstock, and it does work great for me ;) I haven't done much graphite work on it yet.

Answer 5

I use Canson brand papers. the result is good.