…”any material onto which paint is applied.”
The most common supports are canvas, paper and board. Other, more exotic surfaces that artists paint on are metal, glass, linen, clay, plaster, porcelain, fibreglass and moulded plastics… …did I miss anything?
I usually paint on board, canvas and on paper in my sketchbooks.
Today I want to talk about boards - one of my favourite supports because they are sturdy, versatile, and can be inexpensive.
I like to keep on hand a stack of MDF (medium density fiberboard), pre-cut to size. The most economical way to do this is to buy a whole sheet from the local hardware store and have them cut it in store. Today I got myself 18 40x40cm squares out of 1 sheet and It cost me $7 to cut the $32 board up. That works out to around $2.20 a support.
I chose the 0.5cm thick board because I can put short staples straight into the back or very short screws to enable a means to hang without a frame. This board can be easily framed too if I choose to do that, and it’ll work with any kind of frame, with or without glass but it doesn’t need glass to cover it to protect it from damage when painted with acrylic and oil paint like paper does. It’s also strong and straight, doesn’t warp when painted on, is super smooth and paint sticks to it like glue, so it’s lovely to paint on, and…did I mention that it’s cheap?
I really enjoy preparing the boards, it’s therapeutic. I usually prepare 2 or 3 at a time. The prep turns into part of the painting process because I like to give them a bit of a rustic look with layers of paint and a bit of sanding around the edges, and I can get quite creative with this part of the process.
prep.
I like to give the boards a light sand around the edges and round off the corners which gives them an aged look.
I paint both sides…
and the edges with whatever acrylic paint I have laying around - sometimes I offload the paint left on my pallet from what I’ve been working on onto the boards - not much paint gets wasted around here.
Writing this blog made me think about whether MDF is environmentally friendly? Turns out that it can be because it can be made from recycled materials, and the most un-environmental thing about it is when it ends up in land fill. Hmmmm… One should look into buying discarded board from the salvage yard… …I wonder if they’d cut it up for me like the lovely people at Mitre 10 do without complaint.
I choose a side that I’ll paint on and give that side a few coats of gesso, sanding in-between coats. I like to pay particular attention to the edges, do I want them dark or light? Do I want lumps of paint making textured edges that I can sand back revealing the layers underneath? Do I want to make them an entirely different colour?
Sometimes I get a theme going and sometimes I’m more random as I do the prep. There’s already continuity in the size and shape, so I can rely on that if I want to team them up later for a group shot.
edges…
I like my edges to tell the story of the progress - when you can see the layers you can literally see time spent on prep which is why it looks a bit aged I guess. To me it looks interesting and rustic, especially when I use up bits of leftover paint - I can recall “that bit of paint was left over from that painting session…” Like a diary of painting time.
…several hours later…
I finished painting a portrait of Flynn for his birthday on that board that I under-painted with the two tones of grey (pictured above). I gave it to him last night and he seemed rather pleased :)
