Attn: Traditional Painters: Favorite Support?

[dirtydiesel]

What's your preferred support to paint on? I make my own masonite panels; I can't stand the feel of stretched canvas. I like to be really aggressive with my support when I paint, and I find that canvas buckles too much and I can't be forceful enough with it. My boyfriend only uses stretch canvas, and another friend of mine uses nothing but cardboard...how about y'all?

[chaosrocks]

I paint on paper
taped watercolor blocks
gessoed

or canvas board many layer gesso..( I hate the comercial canvas board surface)

but for big painting I like the bounce of a stretched canvas.

but I believe Ilaekae is a proponant of ply wood. gessoed.

oh and inkjet "Vellum" for quick studies taped to plexi

[Flake]

Right now I'm using primed unstretched canvas taped to a backing board, mainly because I have lots of it lying around and it's easy to store.

I used to use primered hardboard or plywood.

[Elwell]

Strathmore 500 Series illustration board, heavyweight, vellum finish, sealed with acrylic gesso or matte medium, backed with 3/8" foam core.

[Seedling]

I've never understood the attraction to foam core. Doesn't it get all banged up and ugly around the edges, and have all the appeal of a styrofoam cup? I suppose it could be used as a floation device in the event of a flood. . .

I flipflop between gessoed masonite and illustration board. In either case, I draw on it, and then seal it with matte medium before finishing it in either oils or acrylics.

[Ilaekae]

Small pieces (30 x 40 and under)

--stretched canvas
--cdx plywood usually with some sort of cloth gessoed to it
--masonite gessoed
--canvas panels with 3-4 coats of gesso roughed up with a comb or wire brush (I like a rough surface because I usually paint acrylic drybrush)

Above 30 x 40...

--timber-supported cdx plywood with textile surface glued/gessoed to it
--stretched canvas, usually supported with 2x2s or 2x4 stretchers
--Gatorfoam (Forget it! It's a resin signage material that costs approximately $200 a sheet. I have some left from a client's project.

Tiny stuff (18x24 and down)

--canvas panels
--stretched canvas
--wood panels
--plywood
--paper (100-250 pound of various types)
--illustration board and watercolor board
--stretched rice paper
--sanded Bakelite/Hard plastic sheets

NEVER paint on cardboard. It's the single worst piece-of-shit-surface there is, and one of the most fragile. It's actually about the level of newsprint, only uglier, and with a life span of 6 days instead of three...

[alesoun]

Canvas board or acrylic paper.

Husband favours gesso'd wood.

[Elwell]

I've never understood the attraction to foam core. Doesn't it get all banged up and ugly around the edges, and have all the appeal of a styrofoam cup? I suppose it could be used as a floation device in the event of a flood. . .

The foam core is just a backing, to give the illustration board a bit more solidity, especially on larger pieces. I leave a 1/4" border on the illustration board and bind it to the foam core with 3/4" white artist's tape.

[Ilaekae]

Elwell, most of the guys at your end of the business like a really smooth surface to work on, don't they? i could never really get up to speed untill I had enough texture down to really give me a good drag on my brush.

[DavePalumbo]

Everything Elwell said pretty much to the letter for me as well. Yeah Ilaekae, smooth is key, but it also has to grip. I hate glassy surfaces. HATE! But smooth surfaces allow a smooth finish and fine detail, for those of us who are anal about that sort of thing.