Paper is perhaps the most varied surface you can work on – from smooth to rough, hard to soft, thin to thick. It is easy to cut, fold, pierce, join, and tear. Even good paper is relatively inexpensive, providing a cheaper alternative than canvas for acrylic and oil painters, as well as a perfect surface for all drawing media, printmaking, and watercolour techniques.

We stock artist’s papers & boards from European manufacturers who’ve been making paper for hundreds of years, like Hahnemuhle (est.1584) and Fabriano (est.13th Century), as their quality and range of papers is second to none, and with paper it’s all about choice!

We have around 100 different drawing & painting papers, so you can find the perfect surface for your technique.

Papers for dry media - pencil, charcoal, pastel for example - are usually reasonably lightweight (70 – 200gsm. Paper weight is measured in Grams per Square Metre) and have a fine to medium surface. If you’re doing a lot of erasing, a hard paper is best, like Hahnemuhle’s Stella range, otherwise the surface will “pill”.

If you’re using wet media, such as paint, then a heavier weight 250 – 600gsm paper is much more stable. Painting papers range from very smooth, which produce delicate flat washes with watercolour and ink, through to very coarse textures that easily convey a sense of depth. Water-based paints can be used straight on paper, but oilpaint will damage paper unless you seal it first (GAC100 works well and makes a cheap oilpainting surface!), or you can use our special Oilpainting Paper.

Printmaking papers usually need to be quite soft and absorbent, though some techniques demand that the ink dries on the surface, so harder papers are required. Hahnemuhle make world-famous printmaking papers, for intaglio, etching, silk screen, and lithographic techniques.

Many of our papers are suited to mixed media. The 300gsm Britannia paper is by far our most popular, and performs well for many painting, printmaking, and drawing techniques.

As well as suiting your technique, a good art paper will resist the damaging effects of UV light and humidity, and be in itself archival. Cotton (rag) is used to make the most durable papers, being naturally composed of long-chain alpha cellulose. Wood pulp in addition contains lignin, which is an acidic compound that will degrade paper over a relatively short period of time. To make good artist’s paper from wood pulp therefore, this lignin is removed, and the resulting alpha-cellulose pulp is called “wood-free”.  Cheaper to make than cotton, “wood-free” pulp still makes a high quality paper.

We have nice, big, flat sheets of paper – up to 860 x 1220mm for the Hahnemuhle 300gsm Mount Card, which takes paint well, and we supply even larger sizes on the roll – 200gsm Stella is available up to 1480mm x 20m!  The smallest size paper with a genuine deckle (that irregular wavy edge on mould-made papers) is the 300gsm William Turner at 330 x 480mm, a beautiful soft watercolour paper, but we guillotine paper down to just 100mm on request.

A lot of paper these days is marketed as “acid-free” but has just been buffered with calcium carbonate to neutralise the acid, which returns once the calcium breaks down. Check that the paper you buy for your artworks is “archival”, not just “acid-free”! Our Hahnemuhle papers are all made to the highest standards (DIN-Norm 6738) to ensure resistance to deterioration over several centuries!