I Am Calling This "The Teal Book"

We are now at the painting stage. Or we were, until I discovered that I had (again) painted on the wrong side of the paper because this particular manufacturer puts its watermark on the opposite side that most do.

I can start over, or I can go to the art store tomorrow and buy watercolor ground and see if I can rescue it. I've never used watercolor ground, so that's my plan instead.

For those of you curious about such things: the paper we put paint on is usually treated in some way so that it can receive the paint without warping, bleeding, soaking, eating, or lying flat and lifeless on the surface. Different types of paint need different types of surface preparations. Watercolor and gouache papers want a balance of retardant, so that paint floats on the surface (for vibrancy and blending) and porousness, so it sinks into it (for layering and some of the lightness and delicacy we associate with the media).

 Every artist uses the media differently, though, and so they want a different balance of float vs sink; and different manufacturers prepare papers idiosyncratically, so you'll find artists will gravitate toward a specific paper because it suits their way of using paint. This means I can adore a certain paper, but if I recommend it to a friend who also paints, they might find it 'meh'.

Your best bet, if you want to stay productive, is to find that one set of materials that works for you and stick with it as long as it keeps working. But if you are bound and determined, you can buy the materials to prepare paper yourself to your specifications. I usually don't care to get that deeply into the nitty-gritty, because at some point messing with materials keeps you from actually doing the work. But I'm not adverse to experiments if it means I might keep going on something I've already started while solving the problem that's irritating me (way too much sink and not enough float).

More on that tomorrow, most probably. Expect photos! Meanwhile, enjoy the sneak peek at the cover-making process. I even included my little Photoshop layer stack on the right there, for the curious.