Review on 🎨 Canson C à Grain Drawing Paper Pads 9 in. x 12 in.: High-Quality Drawing Paper for Artists by Morgan Gilmore

I hate buying paper online for my drawings. I like being able to hold it and feel the paper; explore it like a monkey explores a banana; see its color. All of this is important in determining if this paper is right for you. BUT. I put my name on the Canson paper - it's a fantastic paper. FOR PEOPLE WHO BUY BUT DON'T KNOW PAPER: I don't know about pastel paper, charcoal (not my best medium), watercolor etc. but I do know graphite or colored pencils for drawing portraits. Therefore, this review focuses heavily on pencil drawing paper. POUNDS - POUNDS Notice that the notepad says something like 65 pounds or 100 pounds - something like that? Obviously a drawing pad doesn't weigh 65 pounds. It means action. £60 is what I think is sketch paper and is usually the pound of paper you get for a book called a sketchbook. But I paint traditional realistic portraits and 60 pounds can't take all the wear and tear the paper goes through in my 12 hours of painting. My minimum requirement for "finished" items is 80 pounds. 80 pounds is great. It's not too thick, but it's also not so thin that it creases with an inappropriate hit. 100 pounds is also very good paper and I would recommend it too. When you buy paper designed for PRACTICAL PAPER, you don't need thick paper. If carbon paper works for your purposes, I would suggest around 60 pounds of paper. More finished items will set you back £80. However, thicker paper tends to get you less per notepad (around 24 sheets versus 100 sheets for around £60), but SPEND the MONEY if you want quality paper that's good after the completion of the work still looks presentable. SKETCH vs. DRAWING As mentioned briefly above, sketch paper is traditionally thin paper. Drawing paper is "fancy" so it's usually thicker and stronger. Sketch paper is for practice in my opinion, while drawing is for real things in my opinion. Sketch paper is cheaper per sheet than drawing paper (usually), but it all depends on the quality. For budding artists, I recommend one notebook each (both drawing and sketching) about 12 inches tall to give them enough space to explore their talents in the sketch notebook and then showcase them on a wider platform in the sketch notebook. For drawing paper at least 80 pounds! This is the lowest paper I have ever used for my portraits. For sketch paper... good. It depends on you. I use 60 pounds which is very good, almost like carbon paper I think. It's about me and VA: I LOVED BOOKS. Oh, I've been doing the rejection of a new book from VA since the last one came out. Then I decided to buy myself a birthday present and bought the 1st and 2nd graphic novels for Vampire Academy. The illustrations are fantastic and expressive, and the story is beautifully adapted. I especially like how Christian and Adrian are drawn (in the 2nd book). EXACTLY and PERFECTLY how I thought they would look. This will make a great addition to your bookshelf, especially if you're a fan of VA in Nursing. BIG PILLOW vs. PILLOW FOR POMOROTO, that's the question! Which paper size to buy! It's entirely up to you and what kind of drawing you want to receive. I have paper notebooks ranging in size from 6x8 to 24x18. The type of paper you receive is entirely up to you. Honestly. If you want to take large format portraits, a large notepad is definitely the right choice. If you want portraits the size of a sheet of copy paper (OB), then 9x12 is a great size (I use this size most often). My only suggestion for you is to get a spiral bound notebook. This way you don't have to worry about unfinished pages or destroying glued or sewn bindings. I like spirals so I can flip through them easily and never have to worry about messing up a previous portrait just to paint a new one. GRAIN/TEXTURE/GRIT Some papers have... oh... "pockmarks". I draw on smooth medium texture paper/smooth graphite pencils. THE TYPE OF TEXTURE YOU GET IS IMPORTANT TO THE MEDIA YOU USE. Make sure you read what type of paper the paper was designed for, as paper is different and your art tools will perceive it differently. PAPER COLOR. Colour. I don't really care as long as it's not as edgy as gray or pink. I used bleached white paper and then plain paper that doesn't even list a color. I think it just depends on you and what you draw and with what. OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD BUY Of course, the type of painting you do will affect the tools you need. However, if you like realistic portraits of people etc, I might have some advice: a set of feathers - or as many as you can! I use them more than my drawing pen! - White charcoal pencil. REQUIRED to create absolutely white things like highlights. Some people also use white pencils, but I prefer charcoal pencils. If you don't like black charcoal like I do, but still need an alternative to get true black, I highly recommend General's Layout Extra Black No. .555 pencil. This has to be my favorite pencil! - LOTS of erasers of different sizes. I have large pink erasers, pencil erasers, rubber bands, and tiny mechanical erasers to easily get into small spaces. And of course some pencils! I really don't have much of a preference for what kind of pencil I use - a regular old pencil you find in a classroom will do! But if you want to get creative, you CAN definitely buy good Prismacolor or Derwent pens (both fantastic, expensive pens). I suggest a medium or soft set of 12 if you can. Fixed dials may be unnecessary and you may only need a few of them, especially in the 2H to 4H range. 9H is EXTREMELY difficult. The pin guide is: 9H-H are hard pins and 9B-B are soft pins. I'm guessing Standard #2 (HB) is a "neutral" background. BRANDS I RECOMMEND Canson is GREAT paper. Fiction. Scratchmore is also an AWESOME paper. I have Canson and Scratchmore pads. At Scratchmore, I usually buy the ones that have brown covers with a portrait of a woman on the front. good paper Canson, I like the Recycled Drawing 80lb but it turns out to be quite hard to find so any other Canson paper will work fine too. Generals pencils are good and cheap and usually work great for me. MUST stock items such as General's Layout Extra Black No. 555. White charcoal pencils. I only have the Generals brand. A set of sanding shavings and some sandpaper to sharpen the tips when they start to flatten out. You can also use this type of leather (I don't know the name but it comes in a few color combinations and it's gold when new). I recently stumbled upon this neat tool while purchasing a set of blending stumps and I LOVE it. I've heard you can use wipes in addition to your finger. ERASER! Buy a ton of it. Small ones, big ones, etc. I'm not a big fan of kneaded erasers myself, but do it if you want! GOOD sharpener. I have one that sharpens three types of tools and it's by Faber-Castell (it's called the Blackberry Grip Trio Sharpener). I DO NOT RECOMMEND using mechanical sharpeners as I find they chip the end of the pencil and corrode too many of your very expensive pencil sets too quickly. I prefer portable devices even if they are cheap from the dollar store!