The Paper That Finally Stopped My Washes from Buckling

I spent about four years blaming my brushes for something that was never their fault. I would lay a sky wash across a sheet on my student pad, watch it puddle in the middle, and come back an hour later to edges curled up like a drying leaf. Buckling, that is. Every painter I know has fought it, and most of us fight it with the wrong tool.

The fixes I tried were the obvious ones. I mixed the wash weaker. I taped the sheet down on all four sides with painter tape and pressed it hard with my thumbnail. I laid the board flat and weighted two corners with books off the living room shelf. Each one bought me a little time and then quit. Taped paper still cockled between the tape lines, and a weaker wash just meant a paler puddle.

What I needed was a sheet that could take water and stay flat on its own. That is what a watercolor block does. The one I have painted on for about eight years is the Arches cold press block in 7 by 10, 140 pound, and it is the single change that stopped the buckling for good.

A block is exactly what it sounds like. It is a stack of paper with the edges glued down on all four sides, so the sheet you are painting on is held flat by the sheet beneath it. The Arches block I buy holds 20 sheets at 300 GSM. The glue line is thin, and its whole job is to take the corners out of play. Paper cannot lift a corner that is glued down.

The first wash I put on that block, I flooded on purpose. I wanted to see it fail. I laid a sky from edge to edge, wetter than I would ever paint a real sky, and left the room for ten minutes. It dried flat. Not flat enough. Flat.

The paper does some of the work itself. Arches is cylinder mould made, the way it has been for over a century, and each sheet is tub sized in a bath of pure gelatin and then air dried. Cold press has a light texture, which is the finish most painters I know reach for. It catches a granulating pigment in the low spots and still lets light come back up through a thin wash, so a color stays transparent instead of going chalky.

I laid a sky from edge to edge, wetter than I would ever paint a real sky, and left the room for ten minutes. It dried flat. Not flat enough. Flat.

Here is what that does at the table. In my spare bedroom, with the window open and the air dry, a wash on my student pad starts to set in about ninety seconds. On the Arches block I get closer to four or five minutes of working time. That gap is the difference between dropping a second color in and watching it refuse to move. It is also why my skies stopped turning to mud.

Backruns behave differently too. When a bead of water runs back into a half dry wash on softer paper, the pigment grabs and you get a hard cauliflower edge that no amount of scrubbing will fix. On this paper I can wet the spot, wait a breath, and lift most of it back to white with a damp brush and a light touch. The sizing is in the sheet rather than sitting on top of it, and I believe that is the reason.

Two summers ago, Biscuit, my orange tabby, walked straight across a wet wash near the bottom of a sheet. I heard him land and I said a word I will not put in print. Once it dried I wet the paw prints, blotted them, and painted the bottom third again. You would have to know where to look.

Now the honest part. The block does not make me a better painter. It does not fix a bad drawing or teach anyone to see a color. It is not the cheap option, not next to a spiral student pad, and when I do a ten minute demonstration for my Thursday class I still use the pad, because there is no reason to put good paper under a throwaway. The 7 by 10 size is small. Fine for garden flowers and small studies, tight for a full landscape.

Releasing a finished sheet takes care. I let it dry completely, overnight if I can, then slide a palette knife around the edge one side at a time until the glue gives. Cut a corner early and you risk tearing the sheet below it. The glue also takes up a sliver at the edges, so plan to leave a margin you do not care about.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you told me your washes were buckling, I would not tell you to buy a brush. I would ask what you are painting on. If the answer is a pad that curls as it dries, put the Arches block ahead of everything else on your list, and start with the 7 by 10, because it is a size I actually finish. Paint on the top sheet, leave it alone until it is properly dry, and learn to release it with a knife instead of your fingers. Buy it expecting a flat sheet and a wash that stays workable for four minutes instead of one. A better painting comes from the hours, and the hours are a great deal more pleasant when the paper is not fighting you.

The cheap pad stays on my shelf for class demos. I just stopped asking it to hold a wet sky.