There it is. On your easel. Blinding you with it’s pristine brightness and perfection. You know what I’m talking about. It’s that blank white canvas. It’s oddly powerful. Some artists have a hard time even starting a painting, worried they are going to ruin that beautiful canvas. Once you do start to paint your colors are being compared to that glaring white behind it. Now I’m sure that some artists have no problem with a blank white canvas, heck some might even enjoy it. I am not one of them.
I typically make all my own surfaces (with the exception of gifted surfaces). I personally do not enjoy the flexibility that a canvas has, so I mainly paint on plywood panels. A few years back I discovered clear gesso. It is definitely a different consistency and feel from regular acrylic gesso, but I love the option to have exposed wood in my paintings. Also, I figured I wouldn’t have to tone my surface.
Recently while making a fun painting on a canvas board gifted to me by my mom, I learned maybe that is not the case. I started two separate paintings of my cat, Oliver. One was on the toned canvas board while the other was on a wood panel. Same subject matter, but different compositions.
I started the one on the canvas board first. It was just a fun painting where I could work on my color and loosen up a bit. Well, it didn’t take long before I thought, “I’m a gosh dang genius. My colors look so good.” I figured it was all the color studies and play I have been doing that had suddenly improved my color choices. Then I decided I would start another one on wood. I started with the same excitement as the first, but it quickly disappeared. This painting was not nearly as fun or as nice as the first. The colors looked almost ill (not in a good way), and it felt too structured and overworked. What had gone wrong? I had gone about them the same way...except toning my surfaces.
I just figured since I was working on a surface that wasn’t white that I would get the same effects of a toned surface. Well they don’t. Having a bright unnatural background color really changes the way your paint color appears. Sure there was probably some of that with the wood grain, but it is not as drastic.
I also realized that as much as I love the wood grain exposed on the surface, I may love it too much. I have made it precious. I don’t want to be restrictive with my paintings before they even begin. Thinking back, the wood panels that I have painted on over failed starts are so much easier to dive into and not overly care about then a blank one.
I still love the idea of being able to have wood grain exposed in my paintings, just now they will be fun colored wood grains.