Jacksons Paper

I’ve just spent an absolute tonne of money on paper…

While you can create impressive artwork on and with anything, it is certainly the case that for certain techniques, having good quality watercolour paper can make a lot of difference. Three of my favourites are Saunders Waterford 425gsm rough, Arches 300 gsm rough, and Bao Hong Academy 300 gsm rough, which I bought a fair whack of.

But this post is not about that, particularly.

Alongside of these I bought some sample packs of Jackson’s Eco Paper and Jacksons Two Rivers. Always up for trying new things. Probably to my financial detriment…

Jacksons Eco Paper is a handmade cotton rag paper, made in India. It is in some ways quite similar to Indigo Rag, or Khadi with a rough surface that responds very well to granulation in washes. It comes in three weights – 300gsm, 425 gsm and 1200 gsm – this latter being as thick as card.

Here’s the tests I did:

I used some of the more interesting pigments on these – Lakeside Forest involved a number of copper pigments in my own preparations. Boat on The Sea I used the YInMn blue.

The second sample pack was Jacksons Two Rivers. This is a very interesting paper made in Somerset, to traditional methods. This is a very hard sized paper, similar to the old Whatman paper I found in my father’s house. The way the colours work is quite different to most paper, almost lying on the surface – water almost pools on the paper when wetting.

Both are certainly somehting I would use. The Jacksons Eco paper has the benefit of being quite inexpensive. I liked the 300gsm the most, but the 1200gsm is certainly very interesting and would be great for large scale work.

The Two Rivers is expensive, and very good quality, though it does not do anything for me that something similarly hard sized such as Arches or Bao Hong cannot. Though I may purchase a few sheets.