What do you paint on?

16x20 stretched canvas; i buy them in bulk on amazon, usually i can get them at around $2.50/each.

You might find niel's video helpful, he started painting on hardboard near the end and he says he just sanded it and then did four coats of gesso (no primer), but off the cuff it sounds like what you did would be fine as well.

for some reason i cannot see your comment for the link, but what i found was a 6pack of 16x20 arteza for $23; that's $3.83 each... on super sale.

My goto canvas is this 20-pack from practica which you can get right now for $57; that's just $2.85.

AFAIK it was the "lightning"/limited time sale that wild pointed to. The "lightning" sale was for $23 instead of the normal $31, which for a 6-pack comes out at $3.83 per canvas.

That being said, as I pointed out in my post, I normally buy this 20-pack from practica for $57, which equates to a much cheaper $2.85 per canvas. So the "lightning" sale doesn't seem like a good deal to me.

Probably its just that you pushed too hard. I poked a hole in one of my canvases before, nbd just keep it around as a scratch canvas to experiment on.

$5 a canvas for 16x20 is a lot. Next time I suggest this 20 pack of 16x20 from Practica. I've gotten it for as low as $57 before ($2.85 each).