Simon Williams SBA is the Course Director for the Society of Botanical Artists Distance Learning Diploma Course and a freelance illustrator, regarded as one of the country’s top botanical illustrators. He is always requiring an excellent quality illustration board that handles wet media well to take washes along with dry brush work to render detail. 
The Strathmore 500 series – Illustration Board for Wet Media has become Simon’s preferred surface to paint on over the last 12 months. Some surfaces rough up a bit on erasing pencil outlines which can affect the way the paint lays down. This board can handle pencil drawing and erasing very well.
It can take paint from the initial first loose washes of colour very well. When the work needs to be tightened up for accurate illustrations this board does not disappoint. Having the right paper/board can make the difference to the final image and if the quality is not there in the surface then problems will arise in the finish of the artwork. Clean crisp edges are easily achieved without the medium bleeding too much using the Illustration board.
Currently Simon is writing a book on Botanical Painting using Gouache and the Strathmore 500 Series for wet media takes Gouache and Watercolour well. It also makes a good surface for paint that Simon uses a lot of, Turner Acryl Gouache. Please visit www.swillustrations.com to view Simon’s work where both Turner Acryl Gouache and Strathmore papers are featured.
