The Story of The Masters’ Choice Paper

The Masters’ Choice by Baohong Watercolour Paper is 100% cotton, acid-free, internally and externally sized on both sides with traditional gelatin, The Master’s Choice by Baohong weighs 300 grams and is available
in hot pressed, cold pressed and rough surfaces, eight 20 sheet block sizes plus full sheets, half-sheets and quarter-sheets. The full-size sheets are watermarked and deckled on all four edges.

China has a centuries-old tradition of papermaking. In fact, papermaking was invented in China more than 2000 years ago and it wasn’t till well over 1000 years later that the art of papermaking was introduced in Europe.

What is surprising is that paper from a culture with this great history in papermaking, including watercolour paper, is not well known or used in Europe. The reason is most probably that eastern watercolour techniques require a very different type of paper in comparison with how western watercolour-artists are painting.

This story begins around five years ago when during a visit to China, Australian watercolour-artists Ross Patterson and David Taylor were approached by the owner of a small paper mill in northeast China that wanted to understand what it would take to produce a watercolour paper that could perform on the world stage.

Upon their return, the two artists contacted Luke Senior, the Australian distributor for Daniel Smith Watercolours. Luke was intrigued by the artists’ story and the three of them decided to contact the mill owner and open a conversation. This didn’t prove to be an easy task as nobody at the mill spoke English, but eventually Luke started a dialog with the owner through an interpreter and he was soon on a plane headed for China to visit the mill. What he found was the small, family owned Baohong mill making high-end fiduciary papers and a small amount of high-quality handmade watercolour paper but unfortunately, the characteristics of the paper were not well-suited to western watercolour techniques. However, the mill owner was very passionate about bringing his watercolour paper to an international audience so Luke agreed to
act as go-between to a team of world-famous watercolour artists and Daniel Smith brand ambassadors that would work with Luke and the mill to perfect the paper. It was a daunting task given the distances involved and the language difficulties, but after three years hard work the team felt they had achieved their goal and the new paper, christened “The Master’s Choice by Baohong” was finally ready for an introduction on the art-world stage.

The rest is really history; the paper was first launched in October 2019 in Australia to great acclaim, one year later in 2020 it had a great debut in north America and now in 2021 it is ready to go “on stage” in Europe and the UK.

Out of gratitude to the fine artists that played a pivotal role in making the paper what it is today, Luke wanted to feature their artwork on the block covers and each of the 24 covers feature a different piece of work from the development team.

We would like to thank these great artists for their input, without which The Master’s Choice by Baohong would never have been possible: Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet, Greg Allen, Amanda Hyatt, Herman Pekel, Ross Patterson, David Taylor, Robert A Wade. Recently added to the team is Thomas W Schaller, a world class watercolour artist and Daniel Smith brand ambassador from the US.