Review: Potentate Watercolour Paper (100% cotton)

Potentate watercolour paper is from China and this is made with 100% cotton content. I found these at local artshop ArtFriend and bought three packs to try. These are available with hotpress, coldpress and rough surfaces.

The paper size I bought is 13 x 19cm and each pack cost SGD 3.50 for 10 sheets. Paper weight is 300gsm, acid-free.

The packaging can be resealed to prevent moisture and humidity from damaging the paper.

The best way to test watercolour paper is to use wet on wet techniques and observe how paint moves and colours blend. Shown above are the three tests on the rough, coldpress and hotpress watercolour paper:

1. Painting horizontal lines on a wet surface to see if the lines can disappear
2. Having two colours blend into one another
3. Charging in one colour onto an existing wet wash

Below are the results:

Rough

Coldpress

Hotpress

On the left is student grade Fabriano 1264 watercolour paper with 25% cotton content. You can see the lines are still quite visible as the colours don't move much to blend with the wet surface.

On the right is the Potentate watercolour paper and you can see smoother colour blend with the 2nd and 3rd lines. For the first line and the intense dots on the 2nd lines, I had made the mistake of not dissolving the paint.

Generally speaking, if the lines can blend until you no longer see the lines, the watercolour paper is performing as expected.

Granulation looks beautiful on the paper.

When charging in colours, colour blends are soft.

This paper can absorb lots of water. That means you should always prepare more paint and water so that you don't run out and have to prepare your mixes again.

Absorbent paper also gives lets the colours have more time to create the soft gradual colour blends. The sizing on the watercolour paper also works well enough to get the paint to move.

There will be slight paper warping if you use a lot of water, but that's not surprising.

Here there are three layers: sky, greens and shadows. Even with three layers applied, I feel like the paper can still handle a few more layers.

The granulation of Cobalt Blue Deep PB74 is beautiful. The colour blend of the shadow on the tree trunk is subtle and gradual. When it comes to colour blending, the paper is doing most of the work. There's no need to go back in with your brush to push the colours around.

Colours look vibrant on the paper. The paper does not dull the colours.

I feel like I should also mention Baohong watercolour paper also since Baohong is also from China. Baohong paper feels better to me. The way the paper feels physically and the way the colour moves just feels right.

So if you're looking for good watercolour paper at reasonable prices, I can recommend both Potentate and Baohong watercolour paper easily.

Availability

If you're from Singapore, you can find the paper at ArtFriend. If you're buying online, try Shopee SG and Lazada SG.