The Factoid Firefly: August 2014

Here's my little project!

This is a product review for the "Canson Mixed Media Paper XL Series", it shouldn't be long but I'll give you an overview of how it's working out for me.

Okey, lets get started!

Product Review: Canson Mixed Media Paper - XL Series

Many people call themselves artists, some paint, some draw, some do both, some use one media some use many; For those who use many or "mixed", there are many options for paper and canvas, and I've done a reasonable review on paper that can be found here: Paper, Canvas, and Artist Boards – Which is best to paint on? (Only thing I'd note is I focused on painting more than anything else.) But today I'm going to review "Canson Mixed Media Paper").

Paper itself:

Paper Type: Mixed Media

Paper Maker: Canson

Series: XL

Poundage: 98lb

Binding: Spiral with Perforated Edges for easy removal

Media Usage: Pen/Ink, Watercolor, Marker, Colored Pencil, Acrylic

Note: I'm only talking about the pads not the sheets or rolls.

Canson mixed media paper is a paper that is thicker than normal paper (printer) and sketch paper but thinner than full out watercolor or acrylic paper, it's a reasonable texture, not ough but not perfectly smooth, if you want a textured paper this isn't really textured, just has a small tooth.

It's 98lb which means it's not very thick compared to even student grade watercolor paper (don't let this turn you off, keep reading.), but it holds up pretty well overall, the key it to let anything wet dry almost totally if not fully before adding anything wet.

Price-wise, it depends on the store, Hobby Lobby and Micheals want up to 15 dollars per pad (9 X 12 inch 60 pages) but Wal-Mart costs 8 dollars, but that depends on where you live. I'm not sure it's worth 15 for one pad but that is my opinion and I hate spending a dollar on pencils to sketch with so I'm a cheapskate. It's up to you. Buying online will cost more, I would try to avoid unless you can't get it in your town or country and even then don't get excited and BUY BUY look and find it cheapest. ( I say this with anything)

Sizes in Inches:

8½" × 5½"

10" × 7"

12" × 9

14" × 11"

17" × 14"

Media Usage:

I don't use acrylic paint other than highlights so I won't address that.

Watercolor:

I'm going to start with the most destructive to paper in general, and that is watercolor.

For me, this paper isn't good for full out watercolor because it's too weak; However, it can be used for light washes if you don't load the brush and paper too full of water, I should also note that I was using Crayola Watercolor Pencils (which aren't that bad I'll have to do a review on those too).

When using it for watercolor, it's not horrible if you leave it to dry before working anymore on something. Wet on Wet in my opinion is NOT an option for this paper, stick to actual watercolor paper for that, even if it's 144lb or student grade watercolor paper.

I practiced a technique of watercolor base then marker/pencil over it (inspired by Mark Crilley), and here is my result:

I also used water over washable markers which added lots of color and tests the paper, in the end after letting it dry as I worked and letting it flatten out it wasn't too wrinkled in the end. But the balloon bot too wet and in the back you see a small fold dried from too much water.

Key to using watercolor for this paper is - Not a lot of water because too much WILL make it buckle.

Marker:

For Marker, I haven't used Alcohol Based only Water-Based markers, but for that it seems stronger than for the watercolor, it doesn't bubble up with it. For a little background Water-based markers don't bleed as much as alcohol based (Prismacolor, Copic, Sharpie etc). So fast it stands up to a lot of abuse with marker, but after a while it will peel a little, but if you let it draw in between layers it behaves fine.

The Image beside the text, was colored with a marker and watercolor base, and it help up much better with the marker than the watercolor but when I let it dry it flattened a bit.

(Update:

I used a Sakura IDenti-pen which is a lot like a Sharpie and the paper held up alright, but if you go over it a lot while wet it will from what I can tell...For sure bleed through, I'd put a paper underneath if you pick this paper to work with.)

Pencil:

For pencil, this is a perfect paper I believe. It stands up to much erasing and even with dark lines if you use a good eraser it erases almost totally.

Colored pencil-wise, I colored this entire drawing (minus the birds and bugs) with colored pencil first then marker over it and nothing bleed through it didn't ware out it help up nicely!

Here Are Some Sketches:

Ink/Pen:

For Pen, it holds up great, I haven't used a thick pen though, I used a 03 for a moment and a 005 used to make both thick and thin lines, which means repeating ware and tare over lines. So far, no bleeding. I used this pen:

I really like this for pen drawings so far, and I'm sure I'll be adding more in to my book.

Here's a result if an ink drawing:

___

Overall, I give this paper 4.5 of 5 Stars, only because it's not as strong as I figured for water but it holds up pretty decent and I still love it!