Carl Judson - Guerrilla Painter Notebook

Some Alternative
Surfaces for Oils

Here are some different surfaces that I have enjoyed using over the years:

Museum Board - 100% cotton rag museum board can be used for oils without further preparation, but its absorbency sure makes painting on it different. I have used museum board this way (below) and I like some of the effects.

Sugar Beet Loaders
Greeley, CO
Carl Judson © 2001
Oil and pencil on museum board, 7½" x 13".

However, generally I prefer to size the museum board with a synthetic resin varnish to cut the absorbency and protect the paper fibers. Synthetic resin varnish is an
acrylic that is dissolved in a solvent – it is used as a picture varnish for oils and acrylics. One application will soak into the
museum board and surround the paper fibers with acrylic resin, having little effect on the color or surface characteristics while significantly cutting the absorbency.

Since these synthetic resin varnishes are solvent based, they will not cause the museum board to warp. (You can use acrylic gesso to prime museum board, but since it is water-based, it is hard to keep the museum board flat.)

I particularly like to use a combination of pencil and oil paints on this surface as in the painting on the opposite page.

Carton - Carton is a high falutin’ name for cardboard. Many painters around the turn of the 20th Century, like Vuillard and Toulouse-Lautrec, painted on
cardboard, guaranteeing full employment to several generations of art restorers.
The high lignin content of cheap papers, particularly cardboard, causes them to self destruct in a few years, and even faster with the addition of oil paints.

The carton that I use is a very thin (1/32”) cardboard impregnated
with resin, which renders it stable
but somewhat brittle. I have been
painting on this material for many
years and am reasonably confident
of its archival properties, if properly handled.

I tested it by taping a piece to the
roof of my greenhouse. After a full
year in direct sunlight its color had faded some, but for my purposes it survived the test quite well.

Because of the resin, this carton will not warp, so you can use water-based materials to prime it, like acrylic “gesso” or acrylic
gel medium. I like the beautiful warm brown color and texture of the cardboard, so I prefer the transparency of acrylic gel
medium.

Harbor Island Outing
Penobscot Bay, ME
Carl Judson © 2001
Oil and pencil on carton,
7½" x 13".

To protect its brittleness I mount this carton to museum board.

The painting (below left) allows the
warm brown of the carton to show
through in the foreground, the rocks and the distant shore.

Birch and Mahogany - I think that there are few good reasons to paint on wood and many good reasons not to - unless you want the color and grain of the wood to show through the painting.

If that’s the case, there are few surfaces to rival birch or mahogany primed with linseed oil or alkyd resin. I prefer to use an alkyd resin (like Liquin or Galkyd) because it dries much faster than linseed oil. A couple of coats with a light sanding in between will leave a nice surface for painting. The beautiful honey color of birch or the deep red-brown of the mahogany make spectacular surfaces that can be used to great effect. You can purchase either plywood or, my preference, veneer on medium density fiberboard (“MDF”).

Note in these two little paintings how the wood color and grain show through.

Burlap - The rough and over-exaggerated texture of burlap can be tamed to make a very sympathetic surface even for small paintings. The actual burlap is loose and much too flexible. My solution has been to entomb it in acrylic. Its a little labor intensive
but it can be worth it. I temporarily stretch large sheets of burlap just as you would canvas over stretcher bars, brushing one coat of good quality acrylic gesso on each side. When dry, I sand both sides to remove knots and fuzz. Then I brush a second coat onto the front side. After it’s dry, I take it off the stretcher and cut it into pieces the size I want to paint on and glue it down to masonite with more acrylic gesso. Finally, I trowel on acrylic gesso, modeling paste or acrylic paint with a beat-up old palette knife and/or old combs to create a more varied texture. The result can be a really rich and delicately subtle surface.