Watercolor Basics: How To Tear Large Sheets

There are many watercolor papers on the market, but sometimes the one you want isn't availble in pads or blocks, or may not be available in the size you prefer to work.  Fear not, it' easy to tear your watercolor paper at home, so go head, buy those sheets!

Other Entries in the Watercolor Basics Series

• Introduction
• Why Watercolor
• Watercolor Terms You Should Know
• The Difference Between Watercolor for Illustration, Watercolor for Fine Art
• The Great Brush Off
• Materials You'll Need to Get Started
• All About That Paper
• Pick a Palette- Selecting Paints for your Needs

Materials Needed:

• Large sheet of cardboard (to use as cutting surface.  If you have a huge cutting mat, that works too)
• Large metal ruler
• Rotary cutter (to score paper)
• Pencil
• Your watercolor paper

Measure your paper and mark where you want to cut it

Score your paper along that line using your ruler.  Don't press hard enough to cut through, just hard enough to score a line down the paper.

Fold your paper in half.

Unfold your paper, and using your ruler as a guide and a hard edge, press the ruler against the paper and tear along that edge.  Now you have a deckled, hand torn edge that matches the rest of your edges.

Now that you know how to tear large watercolor sheets, you're probably going to need somewhere to store those sheets until you can tear them!  I recommend a large cardboard portfolio- inexpensive and will protect your paper until you can use it.

If you enjoy the Watercolor Basics series, please do me a huge favor and check out some of my other work.  I cut my teeth on watercolor painting Volume 1 of my ongoing comic,7" Kara, and you can find Volume 1 physically in my online shop or through Amazon, and digitally through Gumroad.  It's a beautiful all ages watercolor comic that follows the adventure of Kara, a 7 inch tall girl, as she discovers the larger outside world.  If you've enjoyed Volume 1, you can follow progress on Volume 2 through my Instagram, and if you have a moment, please leave a review on Goodreads to help others find the book.   If you enjoy educational art content including reviews, tutorials, demonstrations, and unboxings, I highly recommend you check out and then subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more arty goodness, including live watercolor demonstrations.  If you want to help this blog out, please take a moment to share any post you've found helpful to your social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest.  Giving me a shoutout on your YouTube channel would also be much appreciated as well.  If you'd like to help fund more tutorials like this, please visit our Patreon for information on how to join the Nattosoup Community.