by Wendon Blake
Japanese paper also has a very appealing, ragged surface. It has a fibrous, fuzzy quality that’s particularly good for a quick drybrush stroke—if you don’t go back over it—and which has a wonderful way of softening a stroke that’s too harsh.
There are so many different kinds of Japanese paper, with so many different baffling names, that I won’t try to review them all here. They’re cheap enough for you to buy a sample of each one in the store and try them all out. You’ll find that some are as thick as cardboard, while others are as thin as newsprint. The thin ones are tougher than you think, and are often harder to tear than a thick European paper. Many of these papers are intended primarily for printing woodblocks, but they can turn out to be excellent watercolor papers too.
Even if you don’t plan to work on Japanese papers—except as an experiment—you’ll find them a rewarding experience and marvelous discipline, particularly if you tend to overwork a picture.
Fabric
I said earlier that acrylic watercolor will stick to a variety of surfaces that won’t hold traditional watercolor. At certain times, the Chinese masters painted on fine grained beige silk. Although this works well with water soluble Chinese inks, it doesn’t work nearly as well with our watercolors. However, the tenacious adhesive quality of acrylic emulsion will allow you to paint on a variety of fine grained fabrics. The trick is to thin your tube color not with plain water, but with a combination of water and acrylic emulsion, or with straight emulsion. I’ll tell you more about how to do this in Chapter 5, on washes.
What fabrics might be suitable? I don’t really think you have to start with silk, which is a pretty expensive material for experimental painting. But I’ve tried unbleached muslin, which has a very attractive off-white tone. I’ve tried scraps of smooth cotton, left over from my wife’s sewing projects. I’ve had interesting results on scraps of smooth canvas left over from oil painting—raw canvas, that is, not the kind you buy in the art supply store, coated with white oil paint—and I’ve had good luck with the kind of canvas panels sold for oil painting, which generally have quite smooth surfaces and a white coating which will hold washes of acrylic paint. The kind of canvas to avoid, of course, is the stuff that comes ready-prepared with an oily white coat that’s meant specifically for oil painting; the one surface that acrylic won’t stick to is anything that’s oily.
The behavior of a fabric will be greatly improved if you prime it with acrylic gesso. Read on.
Acrylic Gesso
Over the centuries, artists have discovered that paintings in practically every medium are strengthened if the artist begins on a luminous white painting surface. Even if the artist decides to tone this white surface, a kind of inner light seems to shine through and adds luminosity to his colors. Thus, the time-tested ground for an oil painting is a layer or two of white lead oil based paint. For panel paintings in oil or tempera, the traditional ground is gesso, which is basically a mixture of animal hide glue and a chalky pigment called whiting.
To provide a suitable ground for acrylic paints, the manufacturers have developed a product which is called acrylic gesso. This is simply a thick mixture of acrylic emulsion, a dense white pigment, and some inert chalky ingredients to lend body. The principle is essentially the same as the gesso of the old masters, but the animal hide glue is replaced by the more tenacious, more flexible acrylic emulsion.
Acrylic gesso will stick to almost anything suitable for painting. For example, if you find a fabric that has a texture that you like, you can easily convert this fabric to a painting surface with one or two coats of acrylic gesso. If you find a slightly rough piece of wood with an intriguing texture which you don’t want to smooth down, even this will convert to a painting surface with acrylic gesso.
For many painters the best news about acrylic gesso is that it can rescue an expensive piece of paper which you’ve spoiled with an unsuccessful painting. At the beginning of this book I warned you not to throw out a spoiled painting. Naturally, if the picture is on a sturdy piece of paper, you should try first to rescue the sheet by painting another picture on the back of the spoiled one. But if you’ve spoiled both sides, a coat of acrylic gesso will turn that paint-covered sheet into a fresh, white surface so you can start again. Here are some suggestions for applying acrylic gesso.
Applying Gesso on Fabric
Acrylic gesso comes in a can or a jar. Some brands are thicker than others. That is, some have the consistency of thick cream, while others are more like pancake batter. Try a couple of brands and see which you prefer.
If you’d like to try painting an acrylic watercolor on the kind of linen canvas used for oil painting, buy the raw brownish canvas in an art supply store, and nail or staple the fabric to a wooden stretcher frame just like that used for an oil painting. Scoop the gesso—preferably the thicker kind, but the thinner kind will do—out of the can or jar with an old soup spoon, and spread the thick white paint over the canvas with a big putty knife. Press the gesso into the fibers and scrape away any ridges of paint as the blade moves along. The putty knife is better than a brush because the flexible metal blade leaves the weave of the canvas intact, while the brush is apt to leave strokes that introduce their own texture. Two thin coats of gesso are always better than one thick one. One thick coat is more likely to cover up the grain of the fabric. And if you’re going to cover up the grain, why work on fabric in the first place?
Dogwood in Park by Hardie Gramatky, N.A., A. W.S., acrylic on gesso board, 12¼” × 18½”, collection Miss Helen Heinrich. Applying his liquid color in fluid, scrubby strokes —thin enough to remain translucent, but slightly thicker than traditional watercolor—Gramatky has chosen a scumbling stroke for the texture of the trees. A thinner, streakier version of this stroke is used for the sky. Because this type of stroke retains the impression of the bristles, the entire surface of the painting communicates a sense of vibrant action. You can feel the movement of the leaves and branches, the direction of the clouds and wind.
The Red Hull by William A. Hanley, A.W.S., acrylic on watercolor paper, 21”x29”, collection Thomas Bill. The rounded form of the boat is rendered in a series of graded washes, and the shadow beneath the boat is a less obtrusive graded wash that moves from semi-dark in the foreground to light at the rear. A dark graded wash, like the one on the lower portion of the hull, is always difficult. This one is even more difficult because it’s light at both ends and dark in the middle. This job is vastly easier in acrylic than in traditional watercolor because you can build your gradations in a series of light washes, one over the other, until you get the variety of tone you want.
Particularly if you’re working on a fabric that’s thinner than canvas—muslin, let’s say—you may not want to stretch the fabric on wooden stretcher bars, since the stretched fabric will be too bouncy to work on comfortably. You could simply tack the fabric down to a sheet of board, apply the gesso, and then start painting as soon as the gesso dries. But acrylic emulsion is such strong stuff that it’s inclined to penetrate the fabric and glue it to the board! So it’s better to stretch a thin fabric on wooden canvas stretchers, apply the gesso, let it dry, then remove the fabric from the stretchers and tack it to the drawing board for painting.
An even better solution is to glue the fabric— before the gesso is applied—to a board and then apply the gesso. This gives you a really durable fabric covered panel which can take painting, repainting, and lots of punishment. If your first painting on the panel doesn’t go well, you can simply apply another coat of gesso and start again.
Buy a sheet of ¼” untempered Masonite at the lumber yard and cut it to the size you want; you can buy thinner Masonite, but the thicker kind is less likely to warp when the fabric shrinks and begins to pull. Make sure that the fabric is an inch bigger all around than the Masonite panel. Place the fabric face down on a sheet of newspaper, and brush a thick coat of acrylic medium on the back of the fabric, as well as on the panel. Then press the panel down onto the fabric, flip th
e panel over with the fabric side up, and rub the fabric down with the palm of your hand until it adheres smoothly without any bubbles or puckers. The emulsion will penetrate the fabric, dampen it, and the fabric should shrink tight as it dries. You can then trim off the excess fabric with a razor blade.
Another method is to cut the fabric a good 2” bigger all around than the panel. You dampen the fabric, apply a coat of acrylic medium right out to the edges, center the panel on the glue coated side of the fabric, and fold the excess fabric back onto the rear of the panel. This means that the excess fabric isn’t cut off, but sticks to the back of the panel. As the fabric dries and shrinks, the 2” of extra fabric on the back of the panel, firmly glued down, will hold tight and strengthen the bond.
Remember that you’re gluing the fabric to the panel before you apply the gesso. After the fabric is glued down and bone dry, you apply the gesso. If the fabric is rough, apply the gesso thinly with a putty knife and scrape off any excess that sticks up. If the fabric is smooth, thin the gesso with water, and brush it on in a series of thin coats, so it sinks in and doesn’t obliterate the grain.
A word of caution about fabrics: They’re unpredictable. Some shrink more than others. Some contain stiffeners that affect their behavior in all sorts of odd ways. If you’re going to invest the time and labor in making a bunch of fabric coated panels, it pays to do some testing in advance. Cut off a small piece of the fabric, wash it, see how much it shrinks on drying, and see if its character changes or if any stiffener gets washed out in the process. As double insurance, it’s even worth the time to take a small rectangle of fabric and glue it onto a small panel to see how the cloth behaves.
As a general rule, I’d be inclined to give all fabrics a gesso coating. Good watercolor papers are manufactured to retain their color even on long exposure to light. But raw or undyed fabrics can’t be trusted to do the same. That glowing white fabric may begin to turn yellow, and that delicate, unbleached beige may eventually turn brown—like too many Chinese paintings on silk. Unless you’re willing to take your chances on the color stability of a fabric, better use gesso.
Applying Gesso on Panels
The panel material that’s now universally recommended for oil, tempera, and acrylic painting is untempered Masonite. (The tempered kind looks more appealing because it’s got a harder surface; but it contains a waxy material which may threaten the adhesion of your paint.) Some varieties have one smooth side and one rough side with an ugly, regular pattern. But I’ve also seen some varieties with one smooth side and an equally attractive rough side, which has a pleasantly irregular, fibrous quality. If you can get the second kind, you have the advantage of two sides to paint on. Otherwise, stick to the smooth side.
Gesso panels were originally developed for tempera painting and the ideal was an ivory smooth surface. When oil painters work on gesso panels, they generally prefer a smooth surface too. But watercolor washes—and acrylic watercolor washes— are hard to control on a smooth surface. So if you work on the smooth side of a Masonite panel, begin by roughening it with coarse sandpaper. Sand the surface until it’s fuzzy. Then apply two or three coats of very thin gesso, which will stiffen the fuzz, and preserve it, rather than cover it. Apply the coats at right angles to one another: that is, the first coat should be stroked from right to left, while the second coat should be stroked from top to bottom. Naturally, if you can find the kind of Masonite that has a rough, fibrous side—but not a patterned side—you won’t have to do any sanding. Just apply several coats of thin gesso.
You can also create an attractive canvas-like surface on a Masonite panel by the way you apply the gesso. If you apply the gesso straight from the can—don’t add any water—the bristles will leave delicate grooves in the white surface when it dries. Carefully brush your first gesso coat from top to bottom, watching to make sure that the grooves remain in the brushstrokes. When the first coat is dry, apply the second coat with all your strokes running from right to left. This will suggest the crisscross of a woven fabric, which can be very pleasant to paint on.
The whole idea of roughening the surface of the panel or creating a canvas-like texture is to preserve or create an irregular surface. Oil or tempera will cling to a smooth surface, but thin washes of color need a rougher surface to grip the liquid paint and to keep it from running where you don’t want it to go. Washes of acrylic will stick to a smooth surface if the color is modified with lots of medium, but this restricts you to working with fairly gummy paint. If you want to experiment with a smooth surface, it’s better to try smooth watercolor paper, which is more absorbent than acrylic gesso and will hold the paint better than a polished gesso surface. For acrylic watercolor painting, a gesso panel should always be faintly rough.
You can also use a sheet of illustration board for a gesso panel; this sort of board isn’t necessarily cheaper than Masonite, but it’s obviously more convenient because cardboard weighs a lot less. To give the smooth board a texture which will be more receptive to washes of acrylic watercolor, apply your gesso by the same crisscross method that I recommended a few moments ago. You’ll notice that the board begins to curl when you put your first coat of gesso on one side. As soon as that coat is dry to the touch, flip the board over and apply another coat to the back. That will start the board warping in the opposite direction, and the equal pull on both sides will flatten the board out. In the same way, when you apply your second coat to the first side, you must apply a second coat to the back. To keep the pull on both sides equal, each side should get the same number of coats. This also gives you a two sided panel to paint on if your first painting doesn’t succeed.
Applying Gesso on Paper
It’s pointless to paint a coat of gesso on a fresh, new sheet of watercolor paper, but gesso can give a new life to an unsuccessful painting. However, only a fairly heavy sheet will respond well to gesso. A thin sheet is likely to buckle when the gesso is applied, and may never quite regain its shape. But a 200 lb. or 300 lb. sheet is stiff enough to retain its shape even when several coats of gesso are brushed on. In a roundabout way, this makes the more expensive, heavier sheets of watercolor paper an economy measure, as I’ve already said. With the aid of acrylic gesso, you can reuse the heavier sheets, not just once, but several times if necessary. Although there’s a limit to how many coats of gesso you can apply before the gesso gets thicker than the paper, you can probably paint but a couple of unsuccessful pictures on both sides—if you don’t apply the gesso too thickly—before the texture of the paper begins to disappear under the gesso. At that point, the paper begins to lose the character of paper and to feel more like a panel. But you can reuse it even then.
There are two ways to apply gesso to paper, depending on the sort of surface you want.
Simply tack down the sheet at the corners just as you would when you’re starting to paint. If you want to retain the original texture of the sheet, apply several very thin coats of gesso. Don’t use it just as it comes from the can, but thin it with water, and work with a large, soft hair brush that leaves no bristle marks in the paint. Let each coat dry thoroughly before you apply the next. Because it’s well thinned with water, the gesso will lightly coat the paper and won’t fill in the peaks and valleys.
When you’ve painted out and painted in several pictures on both sides of the sheet, you will find that the original texture has been lost. At that point, I suppose that you could toss out the sheet if you absolutely insist on retaining the original texture. However, you can now create a new and different painting surface if you wish. Using thicker gesso and a stiffer brush, you can crisscross your strokes to produce the canvas-like surface I recommended when I talked about Masonite panels. Once again, remember that the first coat should run at right angles to the second coat. That is, one coat should run from top to bottom, while the other coat should run from right to left. This crisscross texture will blend in a very subtle way with what’s left of the texture of the paper, giving you a surface which is even more
like canvas than the surface of the Masonite panel.
Although I’ve said that acrylic gesso will give you a fresh painting surface on a spoiled sheet of paper, you’ll discover that a gesso coated sheet does behave differently from a bare sheet of watercolor paper. The most important difference is that the gesso coating isn’t as absorbent as the bare fibers of the paper. The liquid paint is more inclined to rest on the surface of the paper, rather than sink in. You must keep a careful eye on your washes to make sure that they don’t run away with themselves. On the other hand, the tougher, less absorbent surface, sealed off and hardened by the gesso, gives you much more freedom to wipe out and make corrections while the paint is still wet.
Tinted Painting Surfaces
Chapter 5 will tell you how to lay a flat, transparent wash of color on a white sheet of paper. Because acrylic paints dry waterproof, this is the simplest way to convert a white sheet into a tinted sheet. And because the wash is transparent, the luminous white of the sheet will shine through and continue to lend luminosity to your colors.
You can also tint a sheet of fabric, a gesso panel, or a reconditioned sheet of spoiled paper. Just add a few drops of tube color to the gesso. A faint touch of phthalocyanine blue and somewhat more burnt umber or burnt sienna will give you a beautiful range of cool or warm grays, depending on the ratio of cool and warm colors in the mixture. If you add only a speck of blue, letting the burnt umber or burnt sienna predominate, you’ll get beautiful gray-browns. If the blue dominates the brown, you’ll get delicate, smoky gray-blues, with the brown cutting the intensity of the blue just enough to eliminate that cloying baby blue feeling. A touch of yellow ochre will add a hint of gold to the mixture; or mixed with the gesso all by itself, yellow ochre will give the surface a feeling of delicate sunshine.
