Okay so I've been trying to get this one soft grey-blue sky wash right for like three mornings now. Kept wetting the paper, laying it down, lifting a little, and every single time it dries with this hard edge right in the middle where I didn't mean one to be. I finally looked at the block and realized the paper I grabbed is the cheap cotton I bought in a panic when I first went full time, not the stuff I usually use. And now I'm sitting here wondering how much of this week's frustration was actually me being rusty versus me fighting paper that just doesn't want to behave.

Which I think is kind of the trap, right? You get used to blaming yourself when a piece fights back and sometimes the material really is the problem. But I also can't tell if I'm making an excuse for myself because the wash is genuinely not good.

Anyone else ever hit a wall and then realized it was the paper/brush/pigment all along, and did it make you feel better or worse?