Fricktured Friday.

Fricktured Friday.

This weeks post I’ve decided to keep it a little lighter than usual, no politics, no killer robots, just going to be discussing one of the MAJOR elements of my work, the paper I use. And some tricks you can use to get art paper at a better price.

For most people a piece of paper is just a piece of paper, quality doesn’t really matter. Can it be written on? If the answer is yes, that’s usually good enough for most people. Not for many artists unfortunately.

We have to consider, weight, grain, smudgeability, color of the paper itself, and of course price. One thing you never think you’ll need spend more than a couple bucks on, quality paper can easily cost upwards of 10$ a sheet. Which is ridiculously expensive...

My two personal favorites to purchase currently are Bristol, and Water color paper, for working with my markers.But for a paper that’s all around fantastic, that you can use with basically anything, nothing beats stonehenge paper. NOTHING! But it’s insanely expensive and really difficult to get a hold of where I’m at.

So, when it comes to purchasing paper, you got to be somewhat....innovative. I like to work small, usually 8 1/2 x 11’s and smaller, some larger pieces, but they are few and far between... But there’s no reason you can’t buy bigger sheets and cut them up, It’s what I do, and what I suggest you do if you really want to save on price.

If there is a Micheal’s Art supply store near you, they almost always have a 40% off coupon available on their website. Take advantage of that.

More important than anything when it comes to making artwork though, is finding what’s right for you. Bristol paper is what teachers and even art stores recommend I work with when using markers.

But I work fast, and turn the paper constantly, making smudges a real problem if I’m using my faber castell pens and not my prisma color pens on Bristol paper. Which is where The heavier, much more absorbent water color paper comes in to play. Some things you just need to figure out for yourself.

Here’s a few pieces from each kind of paper. Perhaps you can tell how the paper influences the outcome. Perhaps not, regardless. I hope you like them, and take the few pieces of advice I gave you about paper and start saving some money on those overpriced tree corpses! :P

Happy Friday Everyone, Enjoy the Weekend.

Sincerely, Bret Frick.