Last month, I made my very first trip to Hyatt’s All Things Creative, a massive art store I have been dying to visit for quite some time. Shizen watercolour sketchbook was part of my haul. As you can tell from my emojis, this Shizen Watercolour Book review is going to be salty. If you are curious to see how bad it is, please continue reading!
It was a gloomy, rainy day, and with Toronto traffic, it took almost 4 hours to get there! I spent a good hour in the store, and still felt like I had to rush towards the end. When I was in the Shizen section, I noticed some of the paper packs had listed sizing on the packaging, but this sketchbook did not. I bought it anyway, thinking it’s still 100% cotton, how bad can it be?
Besides, the handmade 100% cotton paper is environmental friendly too. What can go wrong?
The Texture
There are two textures for the watercolour books–smooth and rough. I bought the smooth one, because the rough one looked really rough in the store. The smooth one is a little bit less textured than your typical cold pressed cotton paper, but still much more textured than hot pressed paper.
Shizen Watercolour Book Review
As I touched the paint to the paper, I realized sizing really does matter. Without sizing, the paint immediately sinks into the fibres of the cotton rag. Not only that, but my vibrant paints looked chalky and dull on this unsized paper.
In addition to splotchiness, the paints somehow dried darker than on regular cotton or wood pulp watercolour papers too. This throws me off, since watercolour usually dries lighter.
In this closeup, you can see the splotchiness. This is the most unflattering surface I have ever painted on.
Moreover, you cannot use painter’s tape or washi tape on this paper without ripping off its fibres.
Another problem with this paper not being sized is that you cannot lift the paints, even when they are still wet. The paints sink straight into the fibres and you have no chance to lift them. In the painting above, I could not even out the diluted grey paint which was meant to be a very faint shadow on the snow. It soaks right into the paper and I cannot blend it.
For those who paint on both sides of the paper, beware of wetting the paper if you do a wash! Due to no sizing, the water pretty much sinks through to the other side. Despite only lightly wetting one side of the paper, the water soaked through to the other side. You would not expect a 300gsm paper to have this problem, but here we are.
Use With Gouache
Since I cannot use this paper with regular watercolour, I tried it with gouache. For the background, I used Rosa Gallery Watercolour in Indigo, and sprinkled salt on it. The salt had no effect whatsoever on this paper, most likely because it sank to the paper without a chance to repel the pigments.
Believe it or not, I had taped all around this painting but the paint still bled through, and the tape had ripped off some of the paper. I used gouache and acrylic markers on top, and they worked okay. I will only use gouache with this paper from this point on. To be honest, I don’t even want to use the rest of the paper, it’s that bad. You might have better luck painting on your cotton panties than on this paper.
Summary
This is by far the worst watercolour paper I have ever used. It has no sizing, which I think is its biggest problem. Everything dries darker, dull and splotchy on. It does not work with salt. You cannot lift any paints or use washi tape on this paper. Without sizing, any wash you do on one side will soak through to the other. I felt like I have wasted US$20 (plus taxes) on this, which would have bought me at least a couple of panties. 😛
Shizen does make other cotton papers that have sizing, but I strongly advise passing on this one. If you are still looking for a good watercolour sketchbook, try Etchr!
