Priming a canvas

Last week I talked about stretching canvases and that they are primed. It’s a lot like priming bare drywall before you paint the actual desired wall color. Priming puts down a surface that takes the final paint well. On canvas, priming can protect the cloth and make it last longer as well.

There are basically two types of priming: acrylic gessos and oil priming materials which include oil gesso, rabbit skin glue, oil painting ground. Acrylic gessoed canvas is more flexible than oil gessoed canvas. These usually result in a white surface.

Here’s an article on the subject: “How To Prime a Canvas For Acrylics or Oils” Read more!

Paint surfaces

A friend of mine paints art directly on the walls in her house. She also uses canvases, paper, and clothing for more portable art. I’ve also seen art painted on about any surface you can imagine—wood, metal, seashells, rocks, ceramic, plastic, etc. Much of fine art, however, is done on a stretched canvas. But what does that term mean exactly?

A stretched canvas is usually cotton or linen fabric that is literally stretched taut over a wooden frame. The frame pieces are called stretchers. Stretcher bars can be equal lengths to create a square or two sets of different lengths to create a rectangle. Before painting is done, the canvas is primed. (I’ll discuss this another time.)

Canvases can be purchased stretched and primed or some artists stretch and prime their own. This can be cheaper, but also allows for the exact size of canvas the artist desires.

Canvases are generally used for oil painting or acrylics.

Sometimes beginning artists use less expensive canvas board, which is primed canvas stretched over stiff paperboard. Read more!