Meadow at Dusk 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Meadow at Dusk' 5x7.
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today I would like to talk about board prep. In a recent blog post, I discussed the differences in using various different surfaces for painting and promised that I would get a little further into my use of panels and my preparation thereof.
When I started working with wood panels, I was initially painting directly onto the wood surface with my oil paints. This is actually very enjoyable and gives you a sort of unique effect as the wood has the tendency of sucking oil right out of the paint as you work. The problem with this working method is that the wood will continue to absorb the oil out of the paint until all of the paint has either been absorbed into the wood or flaked off.
For this reason, if you're going to be painting on wood panels or ply of any type, you need to properly prepare the board prior to painting. Back when I first started doing board prep, I experimented with doing extreme or interesting textures but ended up settling on doing three layers of acrylic sanding sealer for my larger paintings.
With this sanding sealer and multiple coats, I was getting a furniture type finish on my panels that was very smooth. I worked this way for quite a while on my larger pieces. For my smaller 5x7 studies, I had/have a different approach in that I would use transparent acrylic gesso with some acrylic paint mixed in to tone the board.
I would take the gesso and with the side of a fairly wide brush, smack the board to create a textured surface. I work this texturing over quite a lot so that it ends up being very uniform. After it's dried, I lightly sand the board to take off the sharpest peaks of the texture.
About two years ago I started texturizing my larger panels as well. Though I liked painting on the sanding sealer, smooth surface, I felt that it was too slippery and that I would get better results if I had more tooth to play off of with my brush.
How you prepare your board is very critical to how the finished painting will look. I always teach my students that how you start is how you finish and your boards should always be thoroughly prepared and ready to receive the paint nicely. If you cut corners in your board preparation, your painting will suffer sooner or later for it.
I may put up a video at some point showing my board preparation technique but feel free to experiment. I use Liquitex brand transparent gesso. A lot of artists use this for pastel work and the like but it works really well for board preparation and is the best brand that I found. One big jar of gesso will last you quite a while.
Applying gesso or something like a sanding sealer is absolutely imperative because, as I mentioned above, if you do not buffer the board surface, the paint will become absorbed into the wood over time. I believe I've talked about this before on this blog, feel free to search around and you may get some additional information.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Meadow at Dusk' 5x7; as I discussed in the video, this is a recent painting that is going to remain a small study and not be realized as a larger piece. There are a myriad of reasons for this, so if you're interested please check it out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| 'Meadow at Dusk' by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today I would like to talk about board prep. In a recent blog post, I discussed the differences in using various different surfaces for painting and promised that I would get a little further into my use of panels and my preparation thereof.
When I started working with wood panels, I was initially painting directly onto the wood surface with my oil paints. This is actually very enjoyable and gives you a sort of unique effect as the wood has the tendency of sucking oil right out of the paint as you work. The problem with this working method is that the wood will continue to absorb the oil out of the paint until all of the paint has either been absorbed into the wood or flaked off.
For this reason, if you're going to be painting on wood panels or ply of any type, you need to properly prepare the board prior to painting. Back when I first started doing board prep, I experimented with doing extreme or interesting textures but ended up settling on doing three layers of acrylic sanding sealer for my larger paintings.
With this sanding sealer and multiple coats, I was getting a furniture type finish on my panels that was very smooth. I worked this way for quite a while on my larger pieces. For my smaller 5x7 studies, I had/have a different approach in that I would use transparent acrylic gesso with some acrylic paint mixed in to tone the board.
I would take the gesso and with the side of a fairly wide brush, smack the board to create a textured surface. I work this texturing over quite a lot so that it ends up being very uniform. After it's dried, I lightly sand the board to take off the sharpest peaks of the texture.
About two years ago I started texturizing my larger panels as well. Though I liked painting on the sanding sealer, smooth surface, I felt that it was too slippery and that I would get better results if I had more tooth to play off of with my brush.
How you prepare your board is very critical to how the finished painting will look. I always teach my students that how you start is how you finish and your boards should always be thoroughly prepared and ready to receive the paint nicely. If you cut corners in your board preparation, your painting will suffer sooner or later for it.
I may put up a video at some point showing my board preparation technique but feel free to experiment. I use Liquitex brand transparent gesso. A lot of artists use this for pastel work and the like but it works really well for board preparation and is the best brand that I found. One big jar of gesso will last you quite a while.
Applying gesso or something like a sanding sealer is absolutely imperative because, as I mentioned above, if you do not buffer the board surface, the paint will become absorbed into the wood over time. I believe I've talked about this before on this blog, feel free to search around and you may get some additional information.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Meadow at Dusk' 5x7; as I discussed in the video, this is a recent painting that is going to remain a small study and not be realized as a larger piece. There are a myriad of reasons for this, so if you're interested please check it out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Meadow at Dusk 5x7 (Detail) |
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| Meadow at Dusk 5x7 (Detail 2) |