Guest Post by Martina Peters
“I paint and draw since I’ve been able to hold a pen – very cliché. I was never very good at expressing myself in words so I choosed the graphical way. I discovered Manga by watching the animated series Sailor Moon. With the narrative style of Manga I had finally found a style that really fit me. Since then, a lot has happened and I have expanded and refined my skills. In addition, I am under contract with two publishing houses and publish cartoons regularly.
As far as painting techniques, I am relatively open and I like to try out different materials and mix media. Years ago I started to incorporate watercolour paint into my drawings in order to counteract the cleanliness of the ink drawings. This intrigued me but I was never truly happy with the results. Not even when I tried to rework the watercolour paintings with alcohol-based copics to darken shadows etc. I could not simply colorize the watercolour paintings dark or strong.
I heared about the mould-made paper made by Hahnemühle through a friend. I tried it out and I was really impressed, but the pictures were still too bright and the colors too soft. So I needed colors which would dry waterproof. Liquid watercolours made things worse and acrylic paints did not have the correct luminosity. I toyed with the idea of using shellac inks next, when I stumbled over an old glass silk paint. Yellow was the only color that was left over from an old base case. A colleague had given me a glass of tan “Art Acrylic Aqua” as a gift, which unfortunately I could never mix with watercolour because the colour of the dried acrylic paint dripped off. Out of pure curiosity – and because I remembered I had once mixed silk and liquid acrylic paint – I tested the colors in-depth. It appeared that they work together perfectly and both dry (without stirrups as silk would usually) waterproof, so I could layer colors dark and strong without difficulty.
So let’s get to the paper: A good watercolour paper for me must support certain flow properties of the color. It should not soak up too much fluid, but it also shouldn’t have drops of colour on the picture. Since my work is sometimes very fine and detailed, the paper should not be too rough. In addition, it should have a flatness when I colour large areas. I was amazed that the mould-made watercolour Hahnemühle 200 pad remained fairly smooth, although I have only once provided the entire sheet of 50 x 65 cm with a pretty wet but basic shade of blue.
Surely there are other colors and materials with which I could have worked, but I don’t want to miss the silk paint and also the Hahnemühle mould-made paper anymore. It is my best fit and therefore the silk paint together with the Hahnemühle mould-made paper became my favorite media to use.
More about Martina and her artwork can be found at the following pages:
