Review of New Watercolor Paper!

A while back, Hahnemuhle sent me some new 9x12 blocks of watercolor paper to review. This month I tried out the "Expression" paper -- this paper is 140# cold pressed, 100% cotton. The best way to test a new product is to just give a hard workout in the studio, which I did with this paper. 

Hahnemuhle Expression Watercolor Paper

 I started by drawing out my subject and covering it liberally with masking fluid. The paper seems a little soft, making my pencil marks hard to see.

 After the masking fluid dried, I started splashing water and paint on it. I work really wet at this stage, and you can see the paper is buckling a little from the soaking i'm giving it. I splattered paint and water onto the painting several times, to get the random loose effect.

 After the background dried I peeled off the masking fluid. At this point the buckling has reversed itself and the paper has gone back to flat. I also got out a softer pencil and re-drew my subject, as my pencil marks were too light for me to see.

 I re-masked a few small areas to preserve my whites, and began layering my lightest values on the bird. The colors are basically gray, but to vary it up I mixed ivory black, violet, cobalt, and indigo to make my grays more lively and to keep the gray from getting flat and dull.

 As each layer died, I layered the next deeper value. Here I also painted in some shadow below the bird to "ground" him, and I was not thrilled with the background so I used a Magic Eraser to wipe some of it out -- particularly in the top section of the painting.

And, here's my finished painting. Last thing I did was remove the last of the masking fluid and paint in the small details.

Like all the Hahnemuhle papers that I've tried so far, this one performed beautifully. The masking fluid was easy to remove, the paper reverted to flat when it dried, and it took all the abuse that I threw at it. The paints seemed to soak in more and were a little more difficult to lift than the previous paper I tested, but still, they lifted fairly well for a cold pressed paper. I would definitely recommend this paper to other artists and students.