Home Article How To Choose What Colour Of Paper To Use

How To Choose What Colour Of Paper To Use

Gail Sibley, Artist and Blogger

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Felicity House is up for our Friday ONE question feature so buckle up! It’s all about the colour of paper you use.

The question?

Do you have a favourite pastel hack – a clever trick or shortcut that you’ve introduced into your process?

Felicity’s answer?

Always let the paper work for you …. Choose the colour wisely.

Now if that doesn’t make you curious…

So I asked Felicity to go deeper into what she meant and how best to choose the colour of paper to use. Ohhhh there are a lot of ideas here!

“If the subject has a dominant colour then you could choose paper which is that same colour and concentrate on pastelling the other areas in order to build the picture quite swiftly ie the subject is a warm stone building … choose that colour of paper.

Colour of paper - Felicity House, "Garden at Hotel de L’Orange," pastel, 54 x 40 cm (19 x 14 in). Buff building + warm buff paper — Felicity House, “Garden at Hotel de L’Orange,” pastel, 54 x 40 cm (19 x 14 in). Buff building + warm buff paper

Does a dark interior dominate? Then use dark paper.

Conversely, you could choose the opposite colour of paper (to the dominant subject colour) which will result in a vibrant picture. For example, if you have blue objects, use yellow paper support.

Colour of paper - Felicity House, "Tulip Cup and Saucer," pastel, 18 x 18 cm (7 x 7 in). Green paper - Red subject. — Felicity House, “Tulip Cup and Saucer,” pastel, 18 x 18 cm (7 x 7 in). Green paper – Red subject.

A warm colour paper works well with a cool subject.

Likewise, a cool coloured paper works well with a warm coloured subject.

Colour of paper - Felicity House, "Q is for Quince," pastel with watercolour underpainting, 20 x 24 cm (8 x 10 in). Cool paper with warm subject matter. — Felicity House, “Q is for Quince,” pastel with watercolour underpainting, 20 x 24 cm (8 x 10 in). Cool paper with warm subject matter.

Using a mid-toned paper means you can work well in pastels with darker tones to begin with and finish with the light colour highlights to obtain a painting with a full tonal range.

A light colour of paper enables you to concentrate on drawn marks if that is important to you.

Colour of paper: Felicity House, "The Yellow Saucepan," pastel and soft charcoal pencil, 30 x 22 cm (12 x 8 in). Use pale paper when the drawn line is important — Felicity House, “The Yellow Saucepan,” pastel and soft charcoal pencil, 30 x 22 cm (12 x 8 in). Use pale paper when the drawn line is important

Thinking about the colour of the paper before you start can:

Save you time
Give cohesion to your picture
Makes you think about whether line drawing or colour impact is how you will be working
Helps give you a useful warm/cool contrast
Provides a new challenge – it’s exciting to work on a different colour – what will happen? How will your pastel picture develop on an unexpected colour support?

Lots of papers like Art Spectrum Colourfix can be wiped and re-used, which again gives you an interesting colour, pattern, or shape which can work with a new subject.

Of course, you can paint your own paper/support in watercolour or acrylic which gives you the opportunity to have a paper in a colour that’s not manufactured. Or create graduated colour washes as appropriate to your subject for working on in pastel.

On location, I always carry a folder containing different colour sheets of pastel paper so I can choose the most appropriate one for the subject. For the studio, I might buy some colour papers I usually don’t consider. It’s good to take risks and try things out.”