Ninety sheets is permission to be bad at something. Practice paper is what turns a hesitant line into a confident one, and nobody practices freely on expensive stock. This is the pad you hand a child, or keep beside your own chair, precisely because there is always another sheet underneath.

Faber-Castell makes it from newsprint containing 50 percent post consumer recycled material, sized at a generous 9 by 12 inches with tear-away sheets. It takes graphite pencils, colored pencils, charcoal, crayons, markers and pastels, which makes it as useful for a five year old with a fistful of crayons as for an adult warming up before real work. Faber-Castell has been making art materials since 1761.