I've started buying the cheap cotton paper in bulk and I feel like I'm cheating on someone
Ok so for two years I painted on Arches, 140lb cold press, the whole thing, and I would practically hold my breath every time I taped a sheet down because it's like nine dollars a sheet right now and that's before I ruin it with a bad wash. And that fear got into the work, honestly. I'd do these tight little cautious things and then be mad at myself.
So last month I bought a pack of Fabriano Studio, the 25% cotton one, ninety sheets for what four Arches would cost me, and I've been painting on it like a maniac. Wet into wet, scrubbing, lifting until the surface pills. Yes the paper buckles like a potato chip if I'm not careful. Yes the color sits a little duller. But I did eleven studies last week. Eleven! And three of them are actually good, and I would never have found the good ones if I was still rationing.
I feel like I'm cheating on a paper. Which is a ridiculous sentence to type out. But also the expensive stuff is still up on the shelf and I keep glancing at it like it's going to be disappointed in me.
Anyone else do this? Like save the good materials so long that they go bad, or you outgrow the idea you bought them for?
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
This is a good thing you have done, ji. The fear of wasting the costly paper sits in the hand and then it comes out in the painting itself, very tight and careful. I have felt this with handmade paper here. When the sheet is cheap enough that you can spoil one, only then the hand becomes free.
In our Mithila work also we use the ordinary paper for daily practice and keep the good sheets for the finished piece meant for selling or for the puja. Nothing is lost by this. The practice sheet teaches the hand, the good sheet receives the final work. So you are not cheating anyone, you are only giving yourself room to learn again.
One thing only, if you are scrubbing till the surface pills, then that paper has given you its full life and no more. Keep some of those bulk sheets also for the work you want to last, so that the good efforts do not go on a surface which will not hold them for years. Best wishes for the painting 🙏
"when the sheet is cheap enough that you can spoil one, only then the hand becomes free" ok I'm going to be thinking about that all week, that's exactly it and I couldn't get the words for it. And the split you're describing, ordinary paper for practice, good sheets for the finished piece, that actually makes so much more sense than what I was doing, which was treating every single sheet like it was the one that had to count. that's not discipline, that's just fear with a nice frame on it.
also I'm really curious about the handmade paper, does it behave anything like cotton rag or is it its own whole thing? I've only ever touched it once and it drank the water so fast I panicked lol