2/27/2024 0 Comments Thick painting on canvasYou can get around this by painting a couple of thin layers of Acrylic Gesso on first, to give a more absorbent base.Ģ. Solutions for working on a less absorbent surface:ġ. This is because the first watery layer didn’t grab or absorb fully into the board. These can be fine for experimenting on but the drawbacks are they have an imitation canvas surface that can be really slippy to paint on.Īcrylics straight from the tube or slightly watered down (5-10%) will adhere to them fine.īut if watered down more (30-50%) the paint will tend to sit on top of the board in beads, taking ages to dry – and then when the next layer of paint goes on, it can disturb the fragile paint surface underneath. Most beginners pick up a ready-made canvas board from their local craft/art store because they’re small and relatively inexpensive. Choosing & Preparing the Right SurfaceĬanvas Board – Shiny surface, not very absorbent So if you think about how diluted you’re going to be applying the acrylics and then choose or prepare your surface sympathetically to that style of painting.īelow is a general guide to the absorbency level of a few common painting surfaces. If you think about Watercolourists, they sometimes dilute their paint 50:1 water to pigment, but they choose an rag watercolour paperthat has been designed to absorb the watery paint effectively and hold the pigment when the water evaporates. To be clear, watering down acrylics with water is not a problem if the surface absorbency level you choose to paint on is considered. The most common questions I receive on this subject are from students fearful that watered-down acrylics will harm their paintings in the long run, usually thinking the painting will ‘flake and fall off’. All of these surfaces have different absorbency levels which will have a direct effect on the way the paint behaves when water is added. When I say ‘ support‘, I’m talking about your canvas, paper, canvas board or even a plastic panel you intend on using. However, when acrylics are diluted with water you need to take into account the absorbency of your support to get the best results. If you applied thick acrylic paint, straight from the tube to practically any surface, it would stick. Absorbencyīefore we go any further, I want to draw your attention to the most important factor to consider when working with watered-down Heavy Body Acrylics. With thin layers at the beginning of a painting, you can tweak your drawing and colours and then start painting thicker layers when you’re more confident the painting is coming together. Then the subsequent layers, which are slightly thicker (less diluted) will absorb and ‘grab’ nicely into the layer below.ĭon’t forget, acrylic paint is plastic-based, so if you paint the first layers too thickly, you can create a hard, shiny surface completely covering the tooth of canvas (see: What are your paints made from?) I follow this same practise with many of my acrylic paintings.īecause the thinner watery washes at the underpainting stage create a really nice matt paint surface for the blocking-in stages. If you are painting in an indirect method (working in layers rather than all in one go – Alla-Prima) you need to adhere to this rule to prevent cracking and give the painting a good structure in your oil paintings. This stems from Classical Oil Painting where you build up layers of oil paint, known as ‘fat over lean’įat over lean means that each succeeding layer of paint should have more ‘fat – oil’ than the preceding layer. When I’m building up an acrylic painting, I usually work from thinner diluted layers in the under-painting stages, up to more impasto thicker paint layers in the final stages of the painting. (There is a huge range of Watercolour papers see: How to choose Watercolour Paper). It’s ideal for less experienced painters as it’s more forgiving. Watercolours work best on paper, I recommend Cold Pressed paper (confusingly also referred to as NOT paper meaning ‘Not’ Hot Pressed). Oils are more tricky, so have to be painted onto a properly prepared surface (see: The Trouble with Oil) I recommend a prepared canvas or prepared board.ģ. Acrylics straight from the tube are the most flexible medium, so can be painted on anything – paper, canvas, cardboard, metal…literally anything.Ģ. Your choice of what to paint on can alter the working properties of the paint and give you a different painting experience but it needn’t be a mystery if you follow a few simple rules.ġ. “A great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas.”Ĭharles Dudley Warner Getting your Absorbency Right
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