Taping down and the buckled-paper truth
Okay, so last time we talked paper. You've hopefully got a pad of the cheap stuff sitting around now, not the fancy 140lb yet. Good. Today we're going to wet it and watch it misbehave, and I want to talk about tape before we do, because tape is where people get either overconfident or too scared, and both cause problems.
Here's the thing nobody tells you up front: paper under 140lb is going to buckle when it gets wet. Not might. Will. Water swells the fibers, the sheet stretches unevenly, and unless you're using something heavier or you've properly stretched it ahead of time, you're going to get waves. Little hills and valleys across your paper. It looks alarming the first time. It is not a disaster.
Why we tape at all
Taping does two things. It holds the paper still so it doesn't slide around while you're working, and it gives you a clean edge when you peel it off at the end, this nice crisp white border like a little frame. That's genuinely satisfying and worth doing for that reason alone.
What taping does not do, at least not with regular painter's tape and regular paper, is stop the buckling completely. I want to be honest about that now so you're not disappointed later.
How to actually tape a sheet down
- Lay your paper on a board, a cheap piece of foam core, plywood, whatever's flat and bigger than the paper. I use a scrap of foam core I got from Macey's, nothing special.
- Run painter's tape along all four edges, about half the width of the tape on the paper, half on the board. Press it down firm with your thumbnail or the back of a spoon, especially the corners.
- Don't stretch the paper tight like a drum. Just secure, not tense. You're not upholstering a chair.
- Let it sit a second before you touch water to it. No real reason except it makes you slow down, which is good for you.
That's it. Takes two minutes once you've done it a few times.
The buckled-paper truth
Now here's my actual story on this, and it's a little embarrassing.
My very first wash ever, before I knew anything, I used regular printer paper. Not watercolor paper. Printer paper, because that's what I had in the house and I was too impatient to go buy real supplies. I loaded up my brush and put water down and the whole sheet warped into this potato-chip shape almost instantly. Like it had a personality of its own. It curled up at the corners, it had ridges in the middle, it looked nothing like paper anymore.
So the next time I actually bought watercolor paper, I taped it down properly, feeling very smug about having learned my lesson. And it still buckled. Not as dramatically, but it did. And I remember being kind of annoyed, like, I did the thing, why is it still doing the thing.
Eventually I just decided buckled paper was going to be part of my personality as a painter. I stopped fighting it. And honestly, for a beginner, it doesn't matter much. A little wave in the paper doesn't ruin a wash. It mostly matters if you're framing something under glass later, and at this stage you are not framing anything. You're learning.
This is also, by the way, why I tell every beginner to buy the cheap paper first. I didn't do that. I went and spent forty dollars on nice artist-grade cotton paper before I could even lay down a wash that didn't look like a puddle of regret. Big mistake. I was scared to touch it because it was expensive, which meant I barely used it, which meant I learned nothing faster than if I'd just bought the cheap stuff and ruined twenty sheets of it. Cheap paper first. Ruin a lot of it. That's genuinely my advice, not just a bit.
A real caution, quickly
Painter's tape can pull the surface fibers off cheaper paper when you peel it, especially if the paper's still even a little damp. Let your painting dry completely, a full hour at least here given how fast things dry in this air, before you take the tape off. Peel slow, pull back on itself at a low angle rather than straight up. If it's fighting you, stop and let it dry more.
Before next time
Grab your cheap paper, your board, and a roll of painter's tape if you don't already have one, and get one sheet taped down at home so it's ready to go. Don't wet it yet. Just get comfortable with the taping part so next lesson we can jump straight to water.