Pre-primed or self primed, that is the question!

[Sharon Knettell]

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[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Mr. Doak informed me that the lead primed canvasses take one month to "cure". He said I could use the quicker titanium primer, but you will have to use a panel as the titanium is too brittle for a streched canvas.
What's a girl to do?.

This is not to advocate for the home-made-canvas. But I think wee should consider this: When a canvas is primed at the factory it will be rolled immediately when it is "dry". Then comes a period of "curing", that may be a hardening process, I believe.
One day we buy the canvas in the shop and stretch it. Then, what happens? The dry curved paint will crack, won

[Marvin Mattelson]

Sharon, there are commercially lead primed canvases available. What led you to believe that this is the case? New York Central Artists' Supplies and Soho Artists' Supplies, both located in New York City, sell them. I'm currently working on a portrait and I'm using a portrait grade linen purchased from Soho.

I bought unprimed linen from Mr. Doak as well as lead primer and a bottle of pure liquid lead to add to the primer. It's still sitting in my closet. The thought of dealing with liquid lead and all the negative health implications really freaked me out. The liquid lead must be added to the primer for the one month cure time to be valid. It's not practical for me to prepare a canvas one year in advance.

I also bought five hundred dollars worth of paint. His paint is ground in walnut oil and it was just too slow drying for my purposes. He prefers to use very transparent pigments that are geared toward the Venetian technique. Again not well suited for my purposes.

I did purchase a book from him, "The Secret of The Old Masters" by Albert Abendschein. This book opened my eyes to the problems of using all sorts of mediums and advocates the use of unadulterated linseed oil. This one book has had a tremendously profound effect on my approach to painting so I consider the $500 well spent..

[Kimberly Dow]

I hate to put this in, but I will. I don't recommend Soho art materials. They sent me a defective canvas and then did not replace it exactly. I spent twice as much as I intended since I paid for a stretched canvas, but had to end up re-stetching my own. I didn't get what I paid for - and they quite frankly didn't care.

The only good news is that I bought the good pliers you recommended Sharon. I can't say I was sucessful at it, but my husband was - after he removed what I tried. I need to practice on a smaller canvas.

[Michele Rushworth]

Sharon, I've been using Claessen's 13DP "lead primed" linen for a few years now. Is Robert Doak saying that their stuff isn't really lead primed after all?

[Virgil Elliott]

Sharon,

Robert Doak is indeed passionate about what he believes to be true, and then when he finds out he was wrong about something, he is just as passionate in his advocacy of his new position. Do not equate passion with knowledge of reality. Doak is also passionate in his denouncements of his competitors, and it is wise to take that with a grain of salt as well. He has some good products to sell, and some that are questionable, but I don't take his word on which is which because he fervently believes that everything he sells is wonderful and better than anything else, and he is a very aggressive salesman.

Titanium does not make brittle paint films in oil; zinc oxide does. Titanium dioxide makes weak paint films, because as a powdered pigment it is very light and fluffy, and that is why it is mixed with zinc oxide in most "titanium" whites. The two combined minimize the faults of each. Is it as good as lead carbonate? Well, titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are not toxic the way lead is, but are they as durable over the centuries? Some people think so. I remain sceptical, though I think they will hold up quite well when bound with alkyd rather than unmodified linseed or other vegetable oil. Winsor & Newton's Oil and Alkyd Painting Primer is an alkyd ground pigmented with titanium dioxide and, if I recall correctly, zinc oxide, and my feeling is that this is at least as good a ground as any, and better than most. Gamblin Ground is very similar, more or less the same ingredients, perhaps varying in how much of what is in each. I have used them both, and intend to use them again. Robert Gamblin recommends scuffing the surface of Gamblin Ground with fine steel wool after it is dry for optimum adhesion. Of course it is important to then remove all the dust that has been generated by that process before painting on it. These alkyd grounds can be used one week after they are dry, unlike white lead, which takes much longer to cure. Of course we don't have several hundred years' track record to assure us that alkyd grounds will perform as well as white lead in the long run, but accelerated aging tests indicate that the alkyds will ultimately retain more of their flexibility than white lead oil grounds. I use them with confidence.

Most commercially available lead-primed linen is sized with rabbitskin glue, which is not ideal for that purpose because it is hygroscopic, and undergoes fairly drastic expansion and contraction when the humidity changes, which plays hell with the paint layer after it has lost its youthful flexibility, unless the canvas is glued to a rigid panel.

Stretched canvas is not really the ideal support for oil paintings, because oil paint films become brittle after 50-100 years. Hide glue (aka rabbitskin glue) exacerbates the problem by imposing tremendous stresses on the painting as it expands and contracts, causing extreme changes in the tension of the canvas.

I have been gluing my canvas to panels lately, and using Gamblin's Neutral pH PVA Size for sizing it, then priming it with one of the alkyd grounds I mentioned, more often than not, though I do still sometimes use white lead if I can let it cure for a year before I need to paint on it. Gluing the canvas to a panel goes a long way toward mitigating the problems inherent in stretched canvas supports, and makes all these choices less critical. It is quite possible that an acrylic ground would work just fine on canvas that is mounted on a panel. I still have my doubts about using it on stretched canvas, though, if the painting is to be done in oils. If I were to use an acrylic ground, Golden's would be my choice.

There are those who feel that PVA might ultimately prove problematic in some way, but since we KNOW hide glue will cause problems, I think it makes sense to use the best thing science has to offer instead of something that is known to definitely be problematic. It would be wonderful if we could have guarantees that this or that is the ideal product in every way, but there are always pros and cons to consider in reality, and we just have to make sure we are well informed and then use our best judgment.

Virgil Elliott

[Marvin Mattelson]

Thanks Virgil. Sage-like advice. I appreciate it.

[Linda Brandon]

I'm following this with much interest. I recently stretched raw unprimed linen, coated it with Gamblin's PVA size and then put a coat of Holbein Underpainting White (a lead white). I'm letting it sit for a month before I start work on this. I wouldn't use the Holbein product again, largely because it's so expensive, rougly akin to waxing your car with Chanel skin cream. (Not that I have any.)

I've since been told that Studio Products makes a good lead oil primer. Has anybody here tried it?

[Sharon Knettell]

OK now what is the best linen and where do you get it?

And has ANYBODY used Mr. Doaks' stretchers?

[Michele Rushworth]

Sharon, thanks for doing that Claessen's testing. I love the stuff and would be very interested to hear if any problems (rabbit skin sizing, lots of zinc white, etc.) come up.