Review: Daler Rowney Arteco Sketching Paper (95gsm)

This is the Arteco sketching paper made by Daler Rowney in England.

It's a 95gsm paper with fine grain drawing surface suitable for work with graphite, coloured pencils and charcoal. These are the sizes available:

Spiral Pad - 30 sheets 95gsm cartridge paper

• A5
• A5 Landscape
• A4
• A3

Jumbo Pad - 120 sheets 95gsm cartridge paper

• A4
• A3
• 25 x 25cm

It's a budget cartridge paper sold in either spiral pads or the much thicker Jumbo pad. The Jumbo pad is more economical as it has 120 sheets.

It's still two 2-3 times more expensive than those 500-sheets-per-ream copier paper but the advantage here is the textured surface for drawing.

The paper is acid-free but off-white. I've no doubt it will turn even more yellow in the future. Anyway, this paper is for casual sketching, for less serious work.

Colours will be slighly off when scanning too since it's off-white and slight cream to start with.

Below are some sketches on the paper.

This was sketched with a Lamy Joy calligraphy pen. Line art with ink works well on the paper too.

Sketched with Lamy Joy, Platinum fountain pen with music nib and Pilot Parallel Pen

Drawn with EF nib and Noodler's Bulletproof Ink.

Brush pens work fine too. I've used a Sailor Brush Pen here.

There's enough tooth in the paper so it's nice to use graphite and coloured pencils on it.

If you apply ink washes, even in a small area, the paper will start to warp. Even though the paper is 95gsm, it feels quite thin. Drawings will leave an impression on the opposite page so it's better to just draw on one side of the paper.

Markers will bleed through. Sharpie Extra Fine and smaller works well without bleeding through, however the strokes will be thicker than usual because the paper is absorbent.

Availability

You can find the Daler Rowney Arteco at Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es and JacksonsArt (UK).