Arches Watercolor Pad 9x12-inch Natural White 100% Cotton Paper - 12 Sheet Arches Watercolor Paper 140 lb Cold Press Pad - Arches Art Paper for Watercolor Gouache Ink Acrylic and More

I really like this watercolor paper but its hard on the budget.

Arches cold pressed paper is the best paper. I use it for all my finished pieces. It may not be the most affordable paper but it is so worth the money. I do use another brand for practice, so if your a beginner you may only want this paper for finished work.

First time purchasing Arches watercolor paper. I am thrilled with the high quality paper and using it for my artwork that has changed the whole dynamic of my watercolor work. I will be ordering more of this fabulous paper soon! Thank you Arches for offering the best paper that is affordable. I’ve been painting Cards and this works absolutely perfect for creating as it keeps the colors in depth and brightness like never before.

My favorite go to paper

Ive been doing water color, using watercolor pencils and recently water color markers, for 5 or 6 years now. I always bought fairly good paper - Strathmore 400 series and other decent stuff, but frankly I dismissed Arches as snob appeal, I mean, its more than double the best quality competitors & I always figured it wouldnt really make that much difference. Unfortunately, however, it does. I say unfortunately because this stuff is pricey! If you dont flood your paper with water (I dont, I generally do ink drawings & I control the paint fairly carefully) - if thats how you paint, then save some $ and buy Arches pads instead of the blocks (the blocks are sealed down on all 4 sides, except for a small section on 1 side - that way you can really wet the paper & it wont buckle or curl...and you are less likely to pollute the page underneath). But wow - oh - wow, water a difference top quality paper makes. Im not a good enough artist to describe it well, but the paint just handles better on this paper...regardless of wet on dry, wet on wet, the color just moves better, blends better. And if youre like me & sometimes overflow your black ink lines, its surprisingly easy to clean up edges, even though this paper seems to take paint better than other papers. And if you like to layer, like to scrub in color, or do over-washes. - this paper can take it. Im lucky enough that my budget allows me to buy Arches for most of my work (it helps that Im not doing anything over 12 - 14) but I still use the other papers for practice & test layouts, it does cause me pain when I ruin a 5 x 7 piece of paper that cost $3.00 by doing something stupid! But when you can afford to treat yourself - buy some Arches paper - all the hype is true, in this case!

Teaching a beginners watercolor class. This paper is perfect. Good quality for the price.

I love to paint in watercolor, but have only used canson paper, which has served me well and I will absolutely still be using even for cards and things. I never thought Id be able to buy this paper and did ONLY because a wonderful friend gave me a gift card to specifically buy art supplies. But I had to get a little gift for my son and husband :) Then I splurged on a few pads of this paper since everyone says the paper is most important. But paying $20 for only 12 sheets of paper definitely made my stomach hurt and broke out in hives from nerves :) even as a gift it was hard to do. But, I did and was excited to get them....until I got them. 2 of the 3 pads were damaged. It was shipped loose, in a thin bubble envelope :/ 1 of them had the 2 bottom corners totally smashed and a spot in the center bottom was gouged. The 2nd had it corners smashed downward. The 3rd was fine, probably in the middle. I was in tears. It was hard to buy this for myself already, I felt super guilty or selfish I guess, but then to have them messed up was a bummer. They were supposed to be something cool to look forward to using after a major surgery in a few days, so anxiety is high in general. O contacted the seller who said it wasnt their problem. So after an hour or so on the phone with Amazon and sending pictures as proof, they will supposedly be refunding or return for new ones...though theres no time before surgery to deal with this. But, theyll work it out. I wish Amazon would package things accordingly as to what the item is...paper in plastic wrap needs protection from getting its corners or edges smashed. Yet a toothbrush could be in a 10x10 box rattling around. Makes no sense. Better packaging would be awesome :) I need the edges to be straight, full length, because I make cards for friends and family and I buy this size paper so I can cut it perfectly to make a few cards...so when sides are crunched, then I have to cut edges off on 3 of the side, hopefully straight, but that completely throws off my card size, which throws off the size of the envelopes I make too. So...when you need to be frugal, knowing this is all Ill ever have of this paper, you need every bit. But, Ill figure that out. But the paper is awesome paper for watercolor!!! I feel super fancy...even though Im definitely not :) ;)

Ive never found any watercolor paper comparable to Arches brand paper. So dont even try anything but.

I really love this paper! So I bought arches for the first time for watercolor mostly but than I take an adult art class at my local community center and we get play with many materials! Pastels was one of them and I found that it is so perfect for pastels! BTW Im am a beginner. So I only use the cold press paper because I found for pastels that paper with texture or cold press paper really works best with pastels! This paper is so easy to layer with and you can tape it down without the tape tearing your paper and design/paintings/drawings. So I LOVE geometric paintings and even with the amount of taping I do this paper doesnt rip at all :). So let me tell you the medias I would use this paper with: 1. Watercolor 2. Pastels 3. Graphite 4. Charcoal 5. Ink washes I do not use fixative spray I use a loreal hairspray and the paper takes to the hairspray just perfectly and with Watercolors this paper is really good for dry and wet washes as well as laying and overall great for any kind of painting! Doesnt buckle or peel anything like that! I just bought two pads today because I was going to run out of the one I have now and I will purchasing alot more for now on! (Not sponsored). This paper is even great with the prismacolor Nupastels! This paper and Canson XL sketchbooks I highly recommend for pastels! Especially if you dont want to do toned paper or you want a variety of paper and paper colors! 5 out of 5 stars from this beginner artist :) and Im going to put this out here just because you buy better tools doesnt mean your going to make good art and afford what you can afford! Just practice and remember to stay within your budget :)

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