Five Canvases

Yesterday I built five canvases. I went to the art store in the morning and purchased the materials, and what was once a pile of stretcher bars and fabric is now five painting supports. New canvases are so exciting because they are filled with so much potential.

Before you can apply oil paint to a canvas, you must cover the canvas with three layers of gesso. The solvents used in oil painting, as well as the oil itself, will eventually leach through the canvas and damage it without the protective gesso layer. “Gesso” is the Italian word for “chalk”, and traditionally, gesso was a mixture of chalk and rabbit-skin glue. This mixture is fairly brittle, and is suitable for wood or masonite. Modern gesso has an acrylic polymer base. This is much more flexible, and can be used on canvas.

So here are five canvases, drying on my porch, fifteen coats of gesso later.