Drawing Paper for Warm-ups and Practice?
3yr
Tristan Riverwood
Hello,
This has probably been covered here before, but I couldn't find anything on it when searching the forum. I'm running low on my paper that I use for my gesture warm ups and general practice stuff that isn't really worth keeping (not that I throw it all away). I've been using basic printer paper for quite a while now, and have been enjoying the smooth texture it provides plus the cheap cost, but I was considering switching over to news print. Is one particularly better to draw on than the other. I know that news print is fairly cheaper than printer paper, but I was wondering if there were any other benefits from drawing on this type of medium instead?
Hopefully I posted this in the right section, and sorry in advance if this category was fitting!
Printers paper is a great choice because it's mostly available in every household. But the thing about printers paper is that it's only available in one color: bright white. You see, bright white is quite hard to handle for drawing gestures because you need to use more of your pencil to achieve a noticeable shading of the halftones and the shadows.
Newsprint paper is better, not just because it's cheaper, but also because they offer a natural greyish color which serves as a halftone color. So you just need a bit of shading to create the shadows, and as for highlights, you can use white colored pencils or pastels.
But if you want to stick to printers paper, it's actually not that bad either.
Tristan Riverwood
3yr
Oh that really makes sense, I didn't even consider the halftone aspect that newsprint would offer! I'll probably end up getting both, because I figure it wont hurt to have some options available! Thank you so much for your response, I really appreciate it!
3yr
Honestly I would say just use any paper, personally I keep a ton of used print paper around ad draw on the back of it for warmups and few minute gestures.
Thank you Edd, I really appreciate it! I think I probably will be sticking with my printer paper for now then!
3yr
Depends on what tool you're using... If you're using graphite, newsprint doesn't work very well, you won't be able to see what you're drawing, especially if you have a light touch. If you're using charcoal or conte crayon, newsprint is great. If you're using markers, you might bleed through on newsprint or printer paper, depending on the marker/quality of paper, but if your hand moves quickly, it's less likely to happen, and not too big a deal if it does. If you like to experiment with different mediums, take that into consideration as well. So think of the combination of your tools when making the decision. Also, nothing says you can't have multiple kinds of paper for gestures... Hope this helps.
Thank you for the answer, it really helped. I'm pretty much strictly a graphite kind of guy (sometimes charcoal and colored pencil), so I think I'm going to probably stick to my good ol' printer paper. But I do think I'll probably try out some newsprint in the near future because you are totally right here, why not have some options for stuff to draw on? Again, thank you for the quick response, I really appreciate your help!
