Ynotartblog's Blog

A blank sheet of 140 lb weight Arches hot-pressed paper for watercolor and wet media is 100% cotton and fairly heavy. The surface is smooth and the black edges from the binding are rough. The example I’m looking at is 9 x 12 inches (not exact), a rectangle…but a pair of scissors can change that. And there lies its value. It can change.

One snip, one dot, one line, one drip and it’s something other than a blank sheet of paper. This white unmarked quadrilateral becomes opportunity, possibility, challenge – a dare to be changed.

Color it, write on it, cut it, fold it, put a hole in it, glue it, layer it, pin it and stare at it. Use pencils, brushes, pens, palette knives, scissors, or go ahead and rip it.

You can even pretend to make a mark by visualizing it or making a sketch on another piece of paper, like newsprint. But watch out. You might find you favor your sketch and leave your Arches paper in the dust. No matter. It doesn’t carry any grudges, so you can always return to it.

Even if an unwanted event happens to this piece of paper or you make an unwanted mark, dab, scene, it can be revised, it can be rescued. At least repurposed. It can patiently sit around for years!  Waiting to be found at some distant time, with a new set of eyes, for another go at starting something fresh, that is nothing like what it started out to be those many years/months/days before. Saving marked paper, no matter how it looks, can be a catalyst for many an idea worth investigating with one’s box of art tools.

But maybe it’s not really blank this unmarked paper. Before it’s changed, it’s a window with a view, a question with many answers, a teacher of many subjects, and a problem that can be solved or attempted to be solved in many ways, or not. It’s a choice.