I bought ten sheets of the good toned paper and now I can't draw on it
For three years I was working on this cheap grey Canson pad, the one that buckles if you breathe on it. Then last week I finally went to the shop on Grodzka and bought a proper sheet, the sanded kind, 60x45, and it cost more than my monthly bus pass.
Now it's been sitting on the easel for four days and I have done exactly nothing with it. I keep walking past and thinking, this is the one I should do properly. Which of course means I can't start, because if I ruin it that's a real loss and not just another bad night on cheap paper.
I did the maths on the bus home. One sheet = 22 litres of milk. And I'm scared of a piece of paper.
The stupid thing is I know the fix. You cut it in half. You ruin the first half on purpose. I have told other people to do exactly this. But mine is still whole and still blank and I am still calling it, in my head, "the good one."
How do you all get past this? Or do you just buy more of the cheap stuff and stay comfortable?
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This is the most predictable thing in the world and I say that with sympathy, because I have a drawer of good paper I have not dared to touch.
The fix, if you want one, is to cut the sheet down. A 60x45 is not one painting, it is three or four, and a smaller piece of expensive paper is a much smaller loss. Half of the intimidation is the size of the thing, not the price. I keep a stack of quarter sheets for exactly this and I have never once regretted trimming a good sheet. You can always cut paper. You cannot uncut it, but that has never actually been the problem.
Also worth saying plainly: the first mark on a sanded sheet is not a commitment, it is a decision you can revise. The surface takes a surprising amount of abuse before it gives up. You are not going to ruin it in the first ten minutes, and if you do, that is a cheap lesson compared to four more days of walking past the easel.
the cutting thing works but i'd push back a little on it being the whole fix. i've got quarter sheets of good paper i'm still scared of, it just moved the fear down a size. what actually unstuck me was deciding the first sheet on good paper is a test run and not a painting. you're gonna ruin one eventually, that's the entry fee. once i accepted that the paper stopped feeling like a savings account i wasn't allowed to touch.
"savings account" is the exact word I would have used if I was being honest with myself. I have been treating it like something I could only spend once, and correctly, which is a terrible way to approach a piece of paper that is just sitting there.
The test run framing helps more than the cutting did, actually. Nobody ever told me the first one is allowed to be bad. I think I needed permission more than I needed scissors 🙏
You are the second person to tell me to cut it and I am starting to suspect you are all right and I am just being stubborn about it.
The size thing, that is exactly it. I keep thinking of the whole sheet as one face and then the face has to be The Face. Three or four smaller pieces feels so much less like a verdict. And a drawer of untouched good paper, okay, that is comforting, I thought I was the only one with a shrine.
Okay. Tomorrow I cut it. If I ruin a quarter sheet it is a bad afternoon, not a bad month. I will report back, either way 🙂