I’m trying Oliver’s “Painting a Landscape” video but having trouble with the sky. Oliver (or any one else who can comment on this), in the video, after you wet the paper you go over it back and forth several times with your brush. Are you adding more water, or working in what’s already there? I’m using an Arches paper (medium or rough texture, not sure). Sometimes when I wet the paper, dark spots immediately appear in the white paper. The paper doesn’t seem wet enough to work with, so I add more water and let it soak in and dry a bit. When I paint on it, sometimes it dries to a smooth look but other times there are dark spots of color. Is this a defect in the paper or do I need to do something differently to avoid this?

There was an old video on YouTube by an artist (can’t remember the name) who worked with loose sheets in the field. He said he washed all his paper first before heading out to paint in the field. Was he talking about stretching paper? I have just been taping my paper to a board or working in my sketchbook and painting. Since having the spots problem, I’ve tried going back and forth with a damp stiffish flat brush and working in the water or sort of scrubbing the surface (is this “washing” the paper?). Sometimes this seems to help. Maybe I ought to learn on a smooth paper? Or use a thicker paint mixture on rough paper?

In the red sample I pre-wet with one pass. The blue and gray sample I pre-wet with more water.