What is canvas, how to make a canvas painting and its uses, the best colors for painting on canvas and how to prepare it

a definition  :

Canvas is a fabric made either from cotton, linen, and sometimes hemp. Recently, it has been made from synthetic fibers. Artists of the past used oil coloring on wood before the appearance of coloring on fabric for many years, i.e., before the 15th century, while signs of coloring on fabrics appeared despite this. Coloring on wood continued and was most widely used until the emergence of Venetian cloth in Italy, which later became known as the finest type of cloth for coloring. This revolution began with the use of fabric by Venetian artists and became famous worldwide, leading to the use of wood in the 17th century.

The canvas has different types of fabrics, but the most famous among them is cotton fabric, especially when oil colors are used on it and the appearance of other colors like acrylic colors, which has further influenced its popularity. time is something visible to the naked eye, but the fabric of the past remains the best, and this is due to the manual extraction method of the time and the quality of workmanship that was lacking in our time, although As fabric became more durable and more receptive to color, this meant that old fabrics were being sold at astronomical prices despite the abundance of new ones.

Elements of canvas painting and how to prepare them:

The canvas painting consists of two parts: the top and the wooden frame.

Wooden frame: The canvas is stretched over the wooden frame, then secured with clamps, then canvases with undefined sides are created, allowing the artist to combine the sides with coloring.

Preparation: All types of fabrics today are easy to prepare thanks to the grains of the fabric, their cohesion, the strength of their color tolerance and their wonderful consistency, as well as the development of colors which made them more absorbable, to their opacity and their ability to hide the surface. The top is prepared by distributing acrylic gesso, or what we call gypsum in my Arab countries. The job of gypsum is to close the pores of the fabric and make it softer and more cohesive while reducing color absorption from above. It is a white, transparent dye whose composition is calcium carbonate and acrylic polymer with a group of other materials. Then the consistency of gesso is diluted with water and to increase its density, acrylic is used.

Lack of preparation: Many artists, like Pollock and others, preferred to color directly on top, but this method takes time for each color to dry, and the white color is used to prepare the fabric, then the work is finished. hide the top fabric with the colors because the pores are not closed. The method is difficult and takes a lot of time to work, and it can happen. Any mistake in drying the colors causes cracking, but the strange thing is that the process gives greater realism, and some hope this is due to the adoption of roughness of texture and the highlighting small lines of color.

Canvas Coloring Tools:

Colors: Oil colors and acrylic colors are best suited to the nature of the board, and all other colors are unsuitable.

Brushes: Coarse brushes can be used with oil colors, soft brushes can be used with acrylics, or both.

Gesso: It is used in preparation and has already been mentioned

Varnish: It is a transparent, shiny substance that helps maintain colors. It is applied once the colors are dry. It is available in glossy and matte colors.

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