Cheap Watercolor Paper
Watercolor Painting Lesson

Excellent question! I wish there was a really cheap brand I recommended. I have 2 kids that want to paint and are always looking for the backs of my paper - which I used to use myself. With Arches, what I did starting was buy a full sheet of 140# paper. I cut it into 8 pieces, then worked on both sides of the paper. (Drying in between, of course!) At Blick's $6.29 / sheet, that works out to $.40 / painting. Of course, if you get something really great, you stop and it cost $.80 to keep. Oh well! A 90# paper is false economy since you can only use one side of the paper. It puddles terribly too. So even cheaper alternatives... Fabriano is $1 less, but sizing tends to disintegrate a bit and the paper pulls up under scrubbing. (Pretty common with cheaper papers, btw.) Strathmore 500 series, same, except pulls even more. I have used Strathmore Visual Journal, which I do recommend as a cheaper journal. (Review here: https://jenniferbranch.com/PaintingWatercolor/Art-Supplies/Paper/Strathmore-Visual-Journal-Review.html ) I use Pentalic Aqua Journal primarily, which is not cheap, but not a terrific paper either. I like bound journals and don't have time to make them. Canson (cheap version of Arches company, $2.37), cheaper paper but only good for 2 washes max and forget about scrubbing. Still, Canson would be my choice for practicing brush strokes and other things, but not painting. Anything that's 1 wash. If you're really into painting, you can buy a pack of Arches paper or a roll of Arches and get the price per sheet down. A roll is a pretty big investment though. (I am not sponsored in any way by Arches, btw. I usually use Twinrocker for real paintings now.) So basically, you can skimp on the brush and the paint, but the cheap paper just won't perform the same. It stinks since paper is what you burn through, but the only advice I have is buy a 5 pack of Arches cold press 140#, bringing the price down to $4.72 each. use each for 16 paintings, at $.29 each. 80 paintings for $ 23.58 isn't bad. And you'll be significantly better than if you'd spent $10 on a watercolor pad that only did 24 paintings. Good paper does make a huge difference. Of course you can paint on bad paper, but you'd better be a very good painter before you do it since it's much harder.