Time to Make Another Painting

Now that the semester is winding down, I'm getting ready to begin another painting. I cleaned up my studio and have started work preparing for the next painting: St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the Children. If you were reading this summer, you already know that a lot of work goes into a painting before I can even start mixing paint, but don't worry, I'm not planning on repeating everything I previously wrote about priming, sizing, grounding etc. 

I did, however want to share a couple recent publications that deal with painting on rigid and flexible supports. Some of the information was quite new to me, and in fact, some recent research contradicts the the long established practice of many painters. 

Golden Pigment's Just Paint probably isn't something the arm-chair art enthusiast would be interested in reading. There's a lot of shop talk. Even artists have to sift through some technical and trade jargon. But there's a lot of great stuff in each issue. Volume 28, from last winter focused on flexible painting supports. There's a great analysis of a variety of sizing and priming treatments. Nothing new. All well established arguments. I'm preparing my next canvas (as I did the first) along the same lines.

It was the most recent volume that was so surprising to me. The phrase, "wrecking ball" comes to mind. In an article on the history of wood as a painting substrate, the author stresses the advantages of S2S hardboards (or tempered hardboard, masonite, etc.) for permanent paintings, over other medium and high density boards. Most artist handbooks are very negative regarding tempered boards. I avoided them for years and spend hours calling lumber yards in search of untempered paneling. The article is a little sparse on the technical data that would support that argument, so hopefully more will be forthcoming. It would be a major boon if there turns out to be no conservational objection to tempered boards. Of course all wood based painting substrates would need to be completely sealed and primed with an archival glue.