Hotpressed
paper has smooth, glazed surfaces produced by pressing the paper through
hot rollers after formation of the sheet. Hotpressed paper is surface
treated by calendering it in a mangle. That means that it is burnished
under pressure. This makes the paper surface very smooth.
With machine made papers, the continuous web or ribbon of paper passes
between to rollers that move at a slightly different rate under great
pressure. The sandwich of metal plates and paper is fed between two
rollers called a mangle under pressure. The plates slip under that
pressure and burnish the paper surface. Hotpressed papers are also
called calendered and plated.
These sheets show a high degree of brush detail and tend to show pigment
color brightly. A plethora of hot pressed handmade papers are used for
drawing or opaque painting techniques. It is ideal for delicate
brushwork and illustration as this is the smoothest surface available.
It is excellent for pen and wash work. The paper is specially suited to
painting styles that want to accent the watery irregularities of the
paint, or the styles where precise pen and ink outlines or drawings or
fine brush textures are essential to the desired effect.
The drawback of the hot pressed paper is that the lack of absorption
tends to produce uneven and blotchy washes and amplify minor variations
in pigment granularity or flocculation.
