There's soooo much I want to do during this project. I want to look at more equine anatomy and want to start experimenting with loads more techniques. Will 65 days be enough to do everything I want to do? 🤔 😂 Of course it will be! 😎

Sticking with ink, charcoal, graphite, pastel and an eraser, today instead of working onto cartridge paper I opted to give gessoed watercolour paper a go. I'd got some already prepared, left over from the Find Your Joy painting course I did last year run by artist, Louise Fletcher.

I have a love/hate relationship with watercolour paper. Sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn't. It all depends on the effect you're after. It's a great substrate to paint on or run ink over and some of the textures it creates are fabulous. However, depending on the type of watercolour paper you choose, also depends how much of the grain you want visible. There are three types of watercolour paper: hot-pressed, cold-pressed and rough. Hot-pressed is a smoother surface, cold-pressed is rougher and rough has a really pronounced tooth to it. There's a brilliant, in-depth post all about watercolour paper on Jackson's Art Supplies website for anyone wanting to find out more. 

The effects I've been achieving with the graphite and charcoal over the past week didn't work as well on watercolour paper. It wouldn't smudge and blend effectively in the way I wanted it to due to the surface of the paper. If using acrylics you can use the paint thickly to cover up areas of the texture but with dry media it's much more difficult. I may try it again over the next few days and see if I can make it work better for me OR I may just get my acrylics out 😊

I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's drawing. Do you prefer the texture of the paper coming through or do you favour the smoother, more delicate pieces? Or do you like both? Please do leave your comments below 😎