1. Supporting materials

Wooden supporting materials

The wooden materials used as supporting materials for oil paintings mainly include various solid and dense wooden boards and multi-layer plywood and other man-made Plate. Various medium- and high-density artificial boards are also made of plywood. As long as they are processed according to the base requirements of oil paintings, they can be used as the backing material for oil paintings. However, they are too heavy. Decorative boards veneered with synthetic materials are not suitable as backing materials for oil paintings because their surfaces are too smooth and do not absorb oil at all. The varieties and specifications of commonly used plywood and fiberboard can be found in the appendix.

Wood board

Before textiles were used as the backing material for paintings, wooden boards were always used for tempera works and oil paintings. The woods used in early European oil paintings include pine, fir, poplar, oak, etc. The thickness is usually 2 to 3 centimeters. It is said that some Italian wood panel oil paintings have boards as thick as 10 centimeters. The wood used for oil paintings should be dense, with no knots on the surface and dried. Since the size of the wood board cannot be very large, when making a larger picture, several boards must be spliced ??together, and the seams must be joined. The linen mounting is carefully processed, and the back is lined with wooden bars to make it stronger and prevent it from warping. The processing of the base wood boards for early European oil paintings was carried out by specialized craftsmen, and the signatures of the painter and the carpenter were often left on the back. Although wooden boards are strong as the backing material, they are too bulky, limited in size, and inconvenient to handle.

Plywood

As an alternative to wooden boards, multi-layer plywood is a much lighter material. In theory, several layers of thin boards glued together are more durable than a single thick board. Can resist warping deformation. High-quality three-layer plywood is a good backing material after surface gluing, base coating and polishing. Of course, it is better to use five-layer or multi-layer plywood. The quality of plywood is divided into four categories and three levels. When purchasing, you should choose at least Category 3 (NC) or above moisture-proof plywood. When using larger-sized plywood, backing wooden rails should be added to the back of the board. Adhesives should be used to combine the wooden rails with the plywood rather than nails to avoid rust over time. The gaps in the glue layer on the four sides of the board should be sealed with varnish or shellac to prevent moisture. Before applying the base coating on the plywood, one or two coats of glue should be applied. In order to prevent the board from bending, the back of the board should also be coated with the corresponding coating.

Fibreboard

Fibreboard is an artificial board made of plant fiber as raw material, separated and molded, dried and hot-pressed. High-quality fiberboard has no shortcomings of dry shrinkage, wet expansion and cracking, and its strength and performance are similar to or even better than wood boards. Some painters like to use fiberboard to decorate oil paintings, using the rough texture on the back to form a special texture. But nowadays, in addition to the base treatment of murals, it is relatively rare as a supporting material for easel oil paintings. Fiberboards are divided into three categories based on bulk density, and their quality varies widely. Soft fiberboards with a bulk density below 0.49g/cm3 are loose in texture and easily absorb moisture and cannot be used. Semi-rigid or hard fiberboards should be used. The backing material of fiberboard for oil paintings is the same as plywood. It should also be moisture-proof on the sides and reinforced with wooden rails on the back.

Paper support materials

Paper is the main support material for general paintings. Early Tempera works and oil paintings were also painted on paper materials. Due to the limitations of paper substrates in terms of expression and preservation, paper materials are generally not used in permanent formal oil paintings. However, some painters still use oil painting paper for the convenience of sketching or making some small color drafts when going out. . In fact, as long as it is treated carefully, high-quality cardboard is also a good base material for small oil paintings. Many great painters such as Holbein, Rembrandt and Constable have left a considerable number of oil paintings on paper, some of which have been re-mounted on wooden boards by later generations for preservation.

Common oil painting paper is to directly paint the base on thick paper or mount gauze on cardboard and then apply paint. If the materials are chosen properly and the production is careful, it can be used. To make homemade oil painting paper, you must first choose paper with a dense, tough texture and a certain texture, such as watercolor paper. You can also use various high-quality cardboard and hard cardboard. The second step is to carefully apply the base glue and preferably apply the base paint once or twice. Oil painting paper that is simply coated with a layer of glue on a smooth paper surface may feel smooth when painting, but over time, the oil in the paint or paint will be absorbed into the paper, which will cause the paint and paper to become brittle and eventually damage the painting. .

In order to make some changes to the base, you can use an ink roller to coat the base material to produce a certain texture. You can also use gauze, coarse cloth or other materials to press out the shading while the base material is still wet.

Some domestic painters combine the content and materials of traditional Chinese painting to explore national-style oil paintings, using oil paint and oil pastels to paint directly on rice paper, leather paper or Korean paper to achieve unique texture effects. However, because the oil is in direct contact with the paper, it will accelerate the brittleness and discoloration of the paper. Although it can be reinforced with glue base and Chinese painting mounting methods, it is not conducive to the long-term preservation of the work.

Oil paintings drawn on paper-based materials cannot be stored and carried in roll form, otherwise the base material and color layer may easily crack and fall off. If you want to preserve an oil painting on paper for a long time, it is best to put it into a frame or carefully mount it on a wooden board or plywood.

Textile backing materials

The history of using textiles as the backing material for paintings can be traced back to ancient Egypt or even earlier. In China, the Han Dynasty silk paintings unearthed in the 1970s are more than 2,000 years old. Historical records record that the ancient Roman tyrant Nero ordered his portrait to be painted on a three-meter-high cloth. However, it is said that painting on cloth first spread from northern Europe to southern Italy. Of course, it was in Venice during the Renaissance that fiber fabrics were widely used to replace wooden boards. Compared with bulky wooden boards, canvas is lighter and more economical to use, with almost no limit on size. Most of the Venetian School's oil paintings are huge and magnificent. The canvas size of modern panoramic paintings is even larger. In the past few years, giant linen canvases with a width of 16 meters were specially produced in China for the purpose of painting panoramic paintings.

Textile materials used for painting include cotton, linen and chemical fiber fabrics, among which linen is the best. Hemp fiber is a general term for annual or perennial herbaceous dicotyledonous plant bast fiber and monocotyledonous plant leaf fiber. Its strength, rigidity and water resistance are better than cotton fiber. Suitable for canvas are mainly flax and ramie, which are soft fibers of the former type. There are also jute used as canvas, but the quality is a grade lower. Other types of hemp are generally not suitable for use as canvas. Linen

Flax is a herbaceous plant widely grown in northern areas. It is divided into three types: fiber, oil and dual-purpose. Flax for oil is also called flax. The oil squeezed from its seeds is linseed oil used for oil paintings. It is the main raw material for the lacquer and pigment industry. The stem fiber of flax is soft, tough and wear-resistant. It is widely used in the textile industry. High-quality pure flax fabric is the most suitable material for canvas. After processing, it can be woven into canvases of different thicknesses. Linen canvas is superior to other canvases in terms of durability, abrasion resistance, stability, and absorption of substrates. Although it has been repeatedly primed, polished, and covered with paint, it can still maintain a certain texture and has been used for hundreds of years. It is the first choice supporting material for oil painting.

The linen canvas sold in the domestic market is divided into two types: finished product and gray cloth. The former can be used directly, while the latter has no foundation and needs to be processed by yourself. There are many types of gray fabrics, and the quality varies. The colors include bleached, natural white, semi-white and linen colors. They are also divided into various specifications such as fine, medium and coarse grains. The width generally ranges from 90 cm to 230 cm. , special wide canvases can also reach 4 to 5 meters, but they are relatively rare.

Ramie

Ramie is a perennial herbaceous plant. White-leaf ramie, native to northern my country, is one of the high-quality textile raw materials. Its fiber is longer than flax and has good toughness. It is also a large-scale weaving material. Canvas material. Historically, many large-scale oil paintings of the Venetian School were painted on coarse-grained ramie canvas. The texture of ramie canvas is usually twill or herringbone, and is rarely used for oil canvas in China.

Jute

The price of jute is lower, but its fiber is thick and hard, and the quality is not as good as flax and ramie. It is mostly used in industry for sacks and carpet backing fabrics. It is not made of jute in China. canvas, but foreign finished canvases are also made of jute fiber.

Cotton cotton has poor toughness, loose texture, and a large expansion and contraction rate. It is only suitable for small canvases within 1 meter in size. The canvas used should be heavy, high-quality cotton that has undergone special anti-shrink treatment in the factory. Otherwise, over time, the expansion and contraction of the fibers will cause the color to crack and seriously damage the picture. It is best not to use cotton canvas unless it is for beginners' practice or for financial reasons.

Chemical fiber fabrics

Fabrics woven from nylon or other chemical synthetic fibers have also been used for oil paintings

High-quality chemical fiber canvases have a small shrinkage rate , good fastness, white color, light weight and low cost.

In practical terms it is no less effective than natural materials, but in professional circles it is still generally customary to use high-quality linen. The main concern about chemical fiber canvas is that the chemical fiber will become brittle and aging over time, which will affect the life of the work.

Mixed fabrics

6k s%q c#A6l+G0T A Z0Some canvases are made of blended or interwoven flax, cotton or chemical fibers. Due to different fiber water absorption rates, Not uniform, resulting in large shrinkage differences, uneven strength, and poor tensile properties. Interwoven canvases made of different materials for warp and weft have greater shrinkage differences and are not suitable for use as a base material for oil paintings. Please identify them carefully when purchasing. Canvases made of mixed material fabrics are cheaper than pure linen, so they can be used for beginners to practice, but they must not be used for important paintings and artistic creations.

Old canvas

Some painters like to paint on old canvases in order to use the background and colors of old paintings to produce rich color levels and texture effects. If used properly, You can get twice the result with half the effort. However, when using old canvases, you should choose them according to the needs of the picture. You should also pay attention to the fastness and foundation of the old canvas itself. If necessary, the old canvas should be polished, and the overly thick and unstable paint layers should be scraped off appropriately. To prevent future troubles. If the underlying color and texture of the old canvas have little preservation value and are used solely for economic reasons, the old canvas must be carefully reprocessed. As for old canvases that are already cracked and seriously damaged, they should no longer be used for painting.

Finished product support materials

The finished oil painting support materials provided by painting material stores include oil canvas, oil painting board, oil painting paper and standard size framed canvas that has been stretched on the inner frame. Some There are also various ready-made fixed inner frames and removable inner frame strips for sale.

Oil canvas

Traditional commercial oil canvas production uses hand-painted bases, but now large-scale production uses machine coating. The common widths of canvas doors include more than ten varieties, ranging from 80 to 180 centimeters, and the wider ones are more than 200 centimeters. Each roll of canvas is available in lengths of 8, 10 or 25 meters. The width of the canvas is limited by the width of the loom, so it is sometimes difficult to buy wide canvases, so splicing is the only way to do it, but it is a last resort, because no matter how good the splicing is, there will always be leftover trace.

When purchasing finished canvas, in addition to the size of the picture and the thickness of the cloth grain, you should also distinguish the texture of the fabric. The nature of the base coating is also very particular. The base of traditional canvas is oily or semi-oily. Nowadays, most of them use general-purpose polypropylene emulsion base, which can be used for oil painting and acrylic.

Many painters like to buy untreated linen blanks and make their own bases. This is preferable in terms of quality or economy, whether it suits personal production needs or not. When purchasing oil painting fabrics in stores, special attention should be paid to identifying the composition and quality, because some stores also pass blended and other linen fabrics as linen. When selecting, you can observe the difference in warp and weft thread components, the nature and strength of single fibers, and the weight and density of the fabric to distinguish cotton, linen and blended fabrics. High-quality linen is heavy in weight, has few surface defects, and has uniform, dense fibers of uniform thickness. On the contrary, it will affect the beauty of the picture texture and make processing extra laborious.

Framed canvas

Framed canvas is sold by stretching the canvas on the inner frame of a standard oil painting. The framed canvas with unified specifications and mass production meets the general needs of painters and students. need. There are now various small and medium-sized framed canvases produced in China, but the texture is mostly cotton and only painted with a simple acrylic base. They are mainly used for students' general practice. The quality is not yet fully up to scratch for professional use.

Oil painting board

Oil painting board is a ready-made supporting material made of cotton canvas coated with acrylic base and mounted on plywood or cardboard. The name of the work, the author, and the name of the work are written on the back. Spaces for classes and grades are provided for student assignments, suitable for oil or acrylic painting. There are more than twenty specifications of standard oil painting boards ranging from 10 × 15cm to 50 × 70cm. They are also suitable for sketching or color sketches when going out.

Oil painting paper

At present, there are two main types of oil painting paper sold in domestic painting material stores. One is made by directly applying base paint on thick paper, and the other is made of Mount gauze on hard paper such as cardboard and then apply paint. Most of them are rough in production, not of ideal quality, prone to oil leakage, and can only be used by beginners for practice.

The sizes of oil painting paper include 8 pages, 4 pages, folio and full sheets.

Xu Mangyao is a member of the International Plastic Arts Association under UNESCO and serves as the Secretary-General of the World Chinese Plastic Arts Association. Since Professor Xu has studied Western oil paintings for a long time and has visited art holy places such as the Orsay Museum and the Louvre many times for copying and research work, he has a lot of experience in this "French Impressionist Painting Treasures Exhibition". Under his guidance, the reporter This exhibition gave me a new understanding.

How to make the base of Tempera painting

I found the method of making the base of Tempera painting from the teacher. I was afraid that it would be lost on the computer so I posted it. I don’t know if the method is open to the public...

If any seniors don’t allow me to post, leave a message and I will delete it as soon as possible

1. Materials:

1 wooden board (large core board can be used instead of about 24*35 cm)

Two 2-2.5 cm thick boards (large core board)

Two thin boards (large core board or density board, spare test pen for color testing)

2 Two pieces of cloth, slightly larger than the surface of the board to be mounted. Thin boards do not need to be framed. Pay attention to using fine old linen cloth, usually cotton cloth. The simplest way is to use old bed sheets. (If using new cloth, soak it in water first and dry it to avoid stretching and deformation.)

3 2 pieces of animal glue—— Rabbit skin glue, hide glue or GELATIN——Gelatin

4 Lithopone (BLANC DE MEUDON)

2. Main utensils

1. Use a water-proof method to cook glue. You need to be equipped with a larger water pot, a smaller pot, and a small stand.

2. Measuring cup, use a glass or Use two spoons each (same size), one to measure the powder and one to measure the water.

3. 5 cm wide brush, used for applying glue and white background

4 large palette knives, used for scraping the board surface

Three. Working procedures

1 Configure heavy glue (1:7)

Use a measuring cup or spoon to measure one part glue to 7 parts water. Soak the first small pot for a moment to soften the glue, then heat it in a large pot over water and stir slowly until the glue is completely melted, then stop the fire. Glue cannot be boiled. Use the glue while it is warm. As the temperature drops, the glue will gradually stagnate and condense, and it can be used after a little heating (usually powdered glue is used, so it is calculated by volume, such as by weight, 80 grams of glue to 1 liter of water)

2 Apply primer glue (thick and thin plates *** 4 pieces on the surface, bottom and 4 sides of the board, use a brush to apply heavy glue 1:7. Use 4 thumbtacks with the tips facing up, place the wet board to dry, and do not expose it to the sun. It cannot be dried and needs to be dried overnight)

3 mounting cloths (2 pieces of thick board mounting cloth)

Prepare a stiff brush or coarse cloth ball, or a piece of wood when mounting the cloth For wiping cloth

First clean the bottom surface of the cloth to remove any wool and debris. Then check the wooden board that needs to be heavily glued. If it is slightly bent, select the arched surface for gluing.

Lay the cloth flat on the board surface and use a brush to apply glue evenly on the cloth surface. Then use a pole to pick up the wet cloth, and then apply glue evenly on the board surface once. Use the pole to pick up the cloth in one hand and a dry brush in the other hand (you can refer to the techniques of mounting Chinese paintings and slowly drop the cloth along the edge of the board). Rub it as it falls. Be sure to Make the cloth in contact with the board conform to the layout. There should be no air bubbles and no impurities and lint on the board or between the board and the cloth.

If you use thin cotton cloth, the hot glue will instantly show through the bottom, which can save you the procedure of lifting the wet cloth and then dropping it. You only need to be careful not to allow air bubbles between the cloth and the board

After the cloth adheres to the board surface, use a dry brush or dry coarse cloth or wood block to wipe the cloth surface flatly to make the cloth more adherent to the board. At the same time, squeeze out the excess glue and the board surface is mounted.

If you want to seal the 4 sides, clean the excess glue on the 4 sides first, then apply glue flatly once, and turn the fabric to welt. It is better to keep the turning points neat and tidy with few bulges.

After the mounting is completed, apply glue once on the 4 sides of the cloth and the bottom of the board, and dry it on the tip of the thumbtack according to the previous method. It takes 2 days and nights.

After drying, if only the board surface is mounted without edge sealing, you can use a blade or sandpaper to cut off the excess fabric edge along the board surface

4 Paint a white background (thick and thin boards, ***4 pieces, Coat the board surface and 4 sides)

Apply 12 thin layers in 4 times.

Apply with a brush. The direction of each layer of brushing is different. The 2nd layer is like a cross, the 4th layer is like a rice character, and the cross-coated glue layer is applied. The different texture directions of each layer facilitate layer-by-layer combination.

Priming procedure:

4 times with different glue content.

Layer 1, 2, and 3: Glue ratio 1:8

Glue powder ratio 1:1

First prepare 1:1 with the first small pot. 8 glue. Heat as before. When the glue is boiling, stop the heat. Remove the first small pot and replace it with the second small pot. Use a cup or spoon to measure a portion of hot glue into the second small pot. Then measure a portion of lithopone and mix it into the hot glue. Mix thoroughly.

How to mix thoroughly:

A Use a spoon to press the coarse lumps of powder along the partition to make the powder evenly mixed with glue.

B Or you can use a metal sieve to slowly open the powder sieve into the glue.

C If it still cannot be mixed evenly, use gauze to filter the paste paint to separate the pellets.

Note: The paste coating can be kept warm by insulating water in the second small pot. Do not heat it. If it continues to be heated, small bubbles will appear and become small voids after drying. It is best to budget the amount of mixed glue. And powder, excess paint is difficult to use and can only be discarded.

After applying the first layer, wait 20 minutes for it to dry, then apply the second layer, and then apply the third layer after 20 minutes. The third layer needs three hours to dry

Layer 4, 5, 6: Glue ratio 1:10

Glue powder ratio 1:1

The fourth layer can be applied three hours after the third layer, the fifth layer every 20 minutes, and the sixth layer every 20 minutes. The sixth layer needs to dry overnight

Layer 7, 8, and 9 :Glue ratio 1:10

Glue ratio 1:1

Each layer should be dried 20 minutes apart, and the ninth layer needs to be dried three hours

No. 10 , 11th and 12th layers: Glue ratio 1:12

Glue powder ratio 1:1

Each layer is left to dry for 20 minutes,

The last three layers, After applying it with a brush, use a painting knife to smooth out the brush marks and level the surface.

After the twelve layers are completed, after two days and nights, the next process can be carried out - polishing

Sandpaper or pumice is initially used with coarse sand, and then fine sand.