I’ve heard of a couple artists who painted on raw, unprimed canvas, or the backside of commercially primed canvases (the raw side). What are the differences between the two? Do certain painting processes work better on either primed or raw canvas?
If you want your paintings to last, always use primed canvas. There is no reason to use un-primed canvas unless you don’t care about it’s archival quality or are just to cheap to put gesso on it.
The oils in the paint will cause the canvas to rot over time. If you put your time and talent into an oil painting, why wouldn’t you want it to last for a long time? If it’s a painting that someone loves and purchased or you gave to them, it would sadden them to have the canvas begin to deteriorate.
Remember, "Ars longa, vita brevis" (Art is long, life is short).
In the raw canvas the paint soaks into the canvas. It takes longer to dry sometimes the colors become distorted because of this. With primed canvas the paint does not soak in but the primer or gesso becomes part of the canvas and the paint binds with the gesso. It then becomes more durable, dries faster, and the painting lasts longer. I have painted both ways and prefer the primed canvas. The paint on raw soaks through to the back.
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raw canvas gives you a stained effect when apply with oil paint, because of its high absobancy, more solvant have to be used creating yucky smell in your studio. Other problems may arise later because oil paint has acidic nature, making it harder to conserve. Stained effect also means that the layer of paint are very thin and is not enought to protect the canvas over years from moisture and pollutant in the air. but that doesn’t mean you cannot choose to use raw canvas, becuase there are always ways to protect your canvas, for instant varnishing it after you are done with the painting.
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Other than the archival nature of primed vs unprimed, the effects of unprimed are flatter and duller surfaces…unless you used heavy impasto. Switching to acrylics will avoid the rot possibility of the canvas.
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A primed canvas is one that gesso has been applied to. . Gesso is a wonderful base that artist like to pretreat the canvas with. Many coats of gesso on a canvas will create a very smooth glass like surface. We call it portrait smooth. One or two coats of gesso is the cheaper of the canvases and may have to be lightly sanded if the smoother look is desired. Raw canvases of course are not gessoed. When wet ,a raw canvas will feel more like a wet sheet. A wet gessoed canvas will remain tight and still hold its shape.
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Artists
If you want your paintings to last, always use primed canvas. There is no reason to use un-primed canvas unless you don’t care about it’s archival quality or are just to cheap to put gesso on it.
The oils in the paint will cause the canvas to rot over time. If you put your time and talent into an oil painting, why wouldn’t you want it to last for a long time? If it’s a painting that someone loves and purchased or you gave to them, it would sadden them to have the canvas begin to deteriorate.
Remember, "Ars longa, vita brevis" (Art is long, life is short).
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