Complete Artist’s Manual: The Definitive Guide to Materials and Techniques for Painting and Drawing. Simon Jennings
traditional support for egg-tempera painting. They can also be used for oil, acrylic and watercolour painting, but are quite difficult and time-consuming to prepare. Ready-prepared gesso panels can be bought from specialist art stores, though they are expensive. Gesso panels have an exceptionally smooth, brilliant white finish which particularly enhances the translucence of tempera colours.
Cardboard and hardboard
Cardboard’s warm colour brings a mellow harmony to Toulouse-Lautrec’s oil sketch. Note how the brush drags on the absorbent surface.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
Woman in Profile (detail)
Oil on cardboard
For his bravura painting, Tom Coates used the reverse side of some unprimed hardboard. There is a lively interplay between thick impastos and thin, drybrushed marks, with the paint catching on the tooth of the board.
Tom Coates
Alfred Daniels Painting
Oil on panel
25 × 20cm (10 × 8in)
Marouflaging a board
(1) Cutting the fabric to size
(2) Applying size to the face and edges
(3) Smoothing the fabric
(4) Trimming the corners
(5) Folding the corner
Priming for oil paint
To provide a sympathetic surface for oil paint, prime a marouflaged board with alkyd or acrylic primer. If you prefer a slightly absorbent, matt surface, thin the primer with white spirit (about 10 per cent by volume).
Time-saving
When making up several small boards, you will find it quicker and easier to glue the fabric to a large piece of board. Leave it to dry and then cut it up into the required number of boards, using a bandsaw As long as the fabric is glued down firmly, it won’t matter that some edges have no overlap.
Preparing canvas board
If you dislike the slippery surface of some commercially primed canvas boards, you can simply apply a further coat of alkyd or acrylic primer, in order to give a more absorbent surface. Matt household paint may be used for sketches or practice work.
SEE ALSO
| PAPERS FOR OILS AND ACRYLICS | Paper is a perfectly satisfactory support for small-to-medium-size paintings as well as preparatory sketches, as long as it is a heavy, good-quality one with plenty of tooth to grip and hold the paint. Thin papers will buckle when they are sized or primed. |
Preparation
Paper must always be sized before oil paint is applied in order to prevent the oil binder being absorbed and leaving the paint film underbound. The paper may be sized with rabbit-skin glue, PVA glue or acrylic matt medium, or primed with acrylic primer. Sizing is not necessary for acrylic paints.
Types of paper
Watercolour paper
Heavy, rough-surfaced watercolour paper or handmade Indian paper can be used as a support for oil and acrylic painting. The paper’s texture shows to advantage when the colour is applied in thin washes. For extra strength, the paper can be mounted on to hardboard.
Oil-painting paper
Sheets of paper, textured to resemble canvas and primed ready for oil painting, are available in fine or coarse grades. Cheaper-grade oil-sketching paper comes in pad and block form. This is convenient for sketching out of doors and is economical for practice work, but you may find that the surface is greasy and unpleasant to work on, like that of the cheaper painting boards.
Acrylic sketching paper
This comes in the form of spiral-bound pads of embossed, acrylic primed paper, which are very convenient for small paintings and sketches.
Paper for oil painting
Indian paper and canvas-texture paper
Size this with rabbit-skin glue, PVA glue or acrylic matt medium, or coat with acrylic primer.
Painting on paper
Paper is an excellent and economical support for painting. It will accept most media, as long as you follow the rules of preparation. This painting is in acrylics, worked directly onto a good-quality, heavy-weight watercolour paper. A toned wash of thinned acrylic was applied first, to tone down the white surface and to act as an extra size for the support.
Dennis Mathew Rooney
Haunt of Ancient Peace
Acrylic on watercolour paper
38 × 53cm (15 × 21 ¼in)
SEE ALSO
| SIZING FOR OILS | Supports for oil painting must always be sealed with a thin coat of glue size before the application of a priming coat. However, you should not prepare the canvas with glue size if you are going to use an acrylic ground or acrylic paints. |
Function of size
Size seals the pores between the fibres of the support, making it less absorbent. This prevents the oil binder in the priming and paint layers from sinking into the support, leaving the paint film underbound and liable to sinking, flaking and cracking.
Rabbit-skin glue
Rabbit-skin glue has traditionally been used for sizing oil-painting supports, since it has good adhesive strength. It comes in the form of granules, and is available in most art-supply shops. The glue size is made by mixing dry glue with water and gently heating it – but be warned