I've been washing the same brush for 20 minutes instead of painting
Not exaggerating. It's 11:40 and I've been standing at the sink with my size 8 round doing the little swirl in the palm of my hand, and I know it's clean, I know it, and I keep going. I think it's because starting is the part I'm scared of today. I have a sheet taped down (Arches, cold press, the good one, which is exactly the problem) and the sketch is done and I just have to commit to the first wash and I can't.
My teacher in school used to say you can always tell a nervous painter by how clean their brushes are. Which, rude. But also. Fair.
Anyway the actual reason I'm posting this at 11:40 instead of painting: I put on a playlist I made in like 2019 and it's working, sort of. Half a song in and I've got my hand hovering. So maybe the trick isn't the brush, it's tricking myself into being 22 again and not caring.
If you're also currently not painting right now, hi. What's the thing you're avoiding today. Mine is a window with too much morning light in it and I keep pretending I don't know it's going to be hard.
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The clean brush thing is real. When I moved from film to cyanotype the equivalent was coating the paper. I would mix the sensitiser, get the brush ready, and then stand there with a dry sheet for twenty minutes because once you pour the emulsion there is no undoing it. The good Arches is the problem, exactly. Cheap paper you ruin and forget. Good paper makes you want to deserve it.
Something that helped me, if it is useful: I started keeping a stack of the cheap stuff beside the good sheets and doing the first wash on one of those. Not as a study, just as permission. Half the time the good one follows within a minute, because the fear was never in the paint, only in the committing. Other half the time the cheap one turns out to be the real piece anyway.
Either way the brush is clean now. You can stop.
The cheap sheet beside the good sheet thing is so smart. I do something like it with canvas panels, I'll do the first block-in on a little 6x8 that cost me nothing and then suddenly I can do it on the real one. Half the time the cheap one turns out better anyway which is its own kind of rude.
Also the cyanotype jump is wild to me. I've never done anything where you can't take it back. Acrylic at least you can paint over. Respect.
Ok the 6x8 panel thing is exactly it, you're basically tricking your own brain into thinking it doesn't count. And yes, the cheap one coming out better is genuinely offensive haha. I've had studies I'd hang over the "real" one. What are you working in mostly, acrylic? Because "paint over it" is a whole luxury I don't get, one wrong wash and I'm either living with it or starting the sheet over.
And yeah, irreversible is a lot. I don't think I could do it honestly, I'd be frozen at the coating stage forever, which, wait, that's literally what you just described. So my sink thing but with chemicals. Respect right back.
Oh the cyanotype coating thing is worse, you're mixing chemicals, you can't just shrug it off. Film to cyanotype is a whole different relationship with irreversible, wow. Did you find the coating brush got easier or did you just get better at lying to yourself about it haha.
The cheap stack idea though. That's the one. Because the problem is I've turned the good sheet into a judgment seat, like if the first wash is bad it means something about me. And you're right, cheap paper doesn't have that charge, you can just wreck it. I have a stack of Fluid that I bought for practice and then never touched because it felt like a demotion, which is stupid when I say it out loud.
Did you ever get to where the good sheet stopped being scary? Or is it always a little bit of a dare. Also if you're doing cyanotypes I have to know, are you working with the sun or a light box, because the sun version sounds romantic and also like a nightmare of timing.