Painting On Raw Canvas - Experimentations

Raw canvas was on sale at my local art store recently for $0.75/foot.  I was able to get two 3'x5' piece for only $7.50!!  Wow.  I've always wanted to paint on a larger size of canvas but was daunted by the price of big stretched canvases.

Raw  or 'unprimed' canvas hasn't been painted/primed with gesso so it will soak up paint like mad.  This makes it not as inexpensive as it may seem because you will spend a lot in paint when you use it.

I did some experimenting to find ways around this and am sharing the results, so far, with you here.  This is an incomplete work in progress.  I intend to leave this unstretched and use it as a wall-hanging when complete.

1. I washed the canvas in hot water with laundry soap and baking soda. I didn't wash anything else with these because I didn't want them to get bunched up and crease badly.  I did not to use fabric softener.

2. Cut away shredded bits that had frayed at the cut ends.  Then I dried the canvas in the dryer (once again NO fabric softener - it can prevent paint from adhering).

3. Removed from dryer right away and ironed.  This would have been hard on an ironing board so I used the kitchen table.  Because I had 2 pieces of canvas, I doubled them over so there were 4 layers of canvas between the table and ironing board at once, then flipped, rotated as needed to iron all of the canvas.  I used a spray bottle to dampen the canvas and high heat.

What I was left with: the washing, drying and ironing shrank the canvas a bit and made the weave tighter.  Exactly what I was hoping for.

My plan was to use watered down super cheap paint to cover the canvas so that I could paint on it later with less cheap paint.  However, I think I am liking the look of this so much, that it will become the actual painting - not just a background.  I used the Michael's store brand 2oz bottles that cost $0.69/bottle.  I've covered tons of the canvas so far and used less than 5 bottles!  Assuming I use 6 by the time I am done that will be $4 of paint.  Far more affordable than gessoing the canvas.

I planned to make a big mess so I took this project out onto the deck with an old sheet under it (and books to weigh down corners due to wind).

I did some weeding:

 detail of weeds which will serve as a 'resist', leaving areas unpainted under them:

Acrylic paint mixed with water (a bit more than half water) and sprayed using the Tulip Fabric Paint Cannon:

 Spraying a layer of pink:

 Adding a few objects and then spraying yellow:

 Spraying white, then removing all objects:

 detail of weed resist area:

By this time I had a blister on the finger that had been spraying so I put away the sprayer. I put paint and water into empty paint bottles and shook them up to make very watery paint (about half and half paint:water).
I waited for the top layer to dry - very fast since it was a sweltering hot, sunny day.
Then I flipped the canvas over and and began applying the paint to the back with a big brush, adding water as needed with the brush.  This side looks very primary but I will paint over it later and this canvas will become double-sided - I can rotate it on a whim :)

 I chose where I put the big washes of colour on the back because I wanted it to bleed through in specific places on the front.  For example I wanted the weeds to be greenish.

 With this technique, what happens is that the paint on the front blocks colour from bleeding through from the back.  The paint from the back only will bleed through onto any remaining parts of canvas that are still raw.  It ended up having a far cooler effect than I had expected and I'm really excited about it :-)

One of the parts of this piece that I love most is the way the colour gradation shows through in the three diagonal lines in the corner:

 I put my second piece of canvas under the piece I was painting part way through - as soon as I saw what cool effects were bleeding through onto the old sheet.  I wanted them on the blank canvas instead!

Would I do anything differently if I did this again?
Yes - first of all I would use more than one finger for holding down the spray nozzle!  :-)
I also would leave more areas raw, with only sparse splatter on them, because of how much I love the bleeding through effect.

Red Star Mandala

When I want to create but have little energy, I often turn to the free graphics editing program Sumopaint and make mandalas from images I already have on hand.

This mandala was created from a photo of a painting in progress (shown below).
I really love how the texture of the canvas itself shows up in this mandala and makes beautiful, feathery lines.

The painting in progress is small and simple so far. I'm enjoying the colours.

Golden Light
5"x7"
acrylic on canvasboard

Alien Spires Painting In Progress

I recently was given some canvasboard by my stepdad who no longer wanted his paintings.
I'm finding it really interesting how the way I paint is changed by having images by another person as an underpainting.
At first I thought I wanted to mask areas of his paintings and then have them showing through when my painting was finished... but it didn't look right to me.

You can see some of his original concentric circles showing through in this version. I have already added a coat of paint so the original colours aren't present but the shapes are:


One thing that was really excellent about this experiment was how my choice of colour was influenced by the previous painting. It led me to choose colours and combinations of colours that I wouldn't have normally. I like being stretched like this and I now have a greater appreciation for why some artists sometimes choose a 'pallette' and constrain themselves to it.

There are still changes I plan to make to this painting, areas and colours that I want to change, but for those who enjoy seeing parts of the process, here's how it looks now:

I'm still a bit frustrated by the way the blue 'tower' on the right appears to lean toward the left (rather than looking like the pink and gold shape is in front of it) but I think I know how to fix that by having a bit of it peek out from the lower left side of that shape.

I'm loving the glowing goldy colours (which are much gentler without the flash glare :)

Painting In Progress 1

I've been painting a lot more recently since I tackled (part of) the mess in my studio.
I'm so excited to have my health returned to a level where I can use acrylic paints and glue again! I am returning to my first love of using texture in painting.

Here's a work in progress:


first, paint, then a layer of glue-water mix - half and half, that I used to attach repurposed biodegradable packing peanuts! They end up shrinking and collapsing in fun ways:

It's great to keep old, damaged brushed to use for glue since the glue wrecks a little more each time anyway. You can get more life from a glue brush by washing it with HOT water and soap as soon as possible after using. I use an old toothbrush with soap right on it to scrub the glue brush.


then I used the same glue-water mix to attach pieces of printed napkins. Once the glue dries, the part of the napkin that was white becomes transparent so that just the printing shows. Flowers and a butterfly:


I have since painted the packing peanuts a shimmery pearl white and now I feel stuck in that place of wanting to add more... but afraid of messing it up!
I have soooo many paintings in an unfinished state because of this.

If you'd like to see amazing examples of fearless layered paintings, check out Tara Leaver. She is awesome! And she takes the time and effort to share photos of each step of her panting journeys! Such dedication and patience! I have learned so much as an artist from following her blog.