Polyester or linen, what is the most archival surface to paint on?

[Sharon Knettell]

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[Claudemir Bonfim]

You're beloved here too Sharon! Thanks for the links.

[David Clemons]

The Sunbrella material has a waterproofing coat, so be sure and wash that off before you start using it, including the indoor upholstery stuff.

In art supplies stores it is "universally primed," meaning acylic. I tested out the Sunbrella sailcloth a while back, and found it to be somewhat difficult to stretch than fabric, and epoxy seems to be the best thing to use for mounting it.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

I did read that polyester can be not absorbent enough to accept a primer. There's something about it here from the Artist's Magazine Q & A (although it is a bit brief).

[Marvin Mattelson]

Sharon, I think you are taking a big chance if you're seriously considering using polyester sailcloth as a painting ground. It's one thing to reline a canvas, and a horse of another color to use it as a painting ground. Are you the same Sharon Knettell who was on a mission to find the ultimate lead primed linen not too long ago? (Fredrix Rix BTW)

I don't know what they're smoking on that new forum of yours but the advocacy of materials that have no real historical precedent is pure folly at best and totally irresponsible at worst. The same goes for using refined linseed oil as a replacement for cold pressed. Roll them dice baby!

Regardless of whatever anecdotal "scientific" evidence can be served up justifying the use of the newest art material dejour, remember that science has a long history of reversing itself. Today's savior often winds up being tomorrows goat. The ultimate test is the test of time, not simulated circumstances and conditions.

I'm not telling you which "friends" to hang out with, but the ones that hang out behind the firehouse trying to convince you that smoking is cool and not addictive, could turn out to be a very bad influence.

[Steven Sweeney]

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but as I read through these posts, it occurred to me that no one has ever issued an environmental warning about filling up landfills with linen, on the basis that it will take hundreds of years to break down. That kind of caution is usually attached to polymer products.

I began using Fredrix PolyFlax years ago -- and still do for landscapes and still lifes -- partly as a matter of economy and partly because I didn't have any reason to go with linen. I like it very much. It's a little harder to get a good stretch on than cotton, but not nearly so hard as linen. And when it's stretched, it's stretched -- I've never had a problem with a polyflax painting "sagging" or wrinkling in the extremes of Minnesota's arid-to-humid climate. All but one of the linen pieces I've done over the years show some of this, at least to a critical eye, even though they were absolutely drum tight after stretching. (Interestingly, the one that has remained drum tight is of an unknown brand of primed linen, of uncertain pedigree or process, that I purchased in a tiny art supply store in Taiwan.)

By the way, I do use linen on all commissions, albeit partly just because of the snob factor. I can hold up the unprimed side and sniff its distinctive aroma and get all heavy-lidded and light-headed as if it were the Muse's own scent, come back to me from the mists of a former tryst. Right. I can tell clients that the stuff will last hundreds of years, even though I haven't the faintest idea whether it will, nor does anyone else. I can't quite shake the feeling that a lot -- almost all, likely -- of the two- to four-hundred year old paintings executed on non-polymer substrates didn't make it to our times. Of those that we do have, most have been subjected to the most sophisticated conservation techniques in history. And yet many are in such terrible condition, that I sometimes wish I'd never seen the original of some of them.

And yes, I know this is all anecdotal. As I said, no dog.