Get a SUPER SMOOTH CANVAS using SUPER HEAVY GESSO

[@kxe1417]

Why hasn’t anyone decided to sell smooth canvas? It’s something I have always looked/hoped for as a kid and just now I realised you could smooth the canvas!

[@theartworkshop]

I wish I knew. A few places sold canvases that were supposed to be "smooth" but they were just less textured if anything. I found the only way is to make them myself.

[@anateixeira9006]

I don’t know if it helps or if you have those available in your country. It’s from Phoenix brand and it’s called: tavola gesso I’ve tried it a few months ago with acrylics and kinda liked it. The surface it’s really smooth. It takes a while to get the hang of it because it’s different from the usual surface. But I did like the result. Also I’ve tried the ampersand aquaboard a few years ago and I liked it too. Hope it helps.

[@renatobfa]

I found that 2 thin coats of modeling paste to fill up the valleys on the canvas to be quite enough to get the surface to a pretty flat level. You just apply one layer and scrap the excess off with a palette knife. With a bit of practice, you won't leave any lines on the canvas at all. Let it dry for about 6~12 hours and repeat. After those 2 coats of modeling paste, I apply 2 (or more if needed) layers of gesso on top (which I like to make colored to a medium shade of brown, just because i prefer that then white canvas). At the end, Its as smooth as an egg. Its very economical too, and no need to sand.

[@jenniferross2797]

Smart! Def want to try this…you would do this over a layer of gesso, right (not bare canvas)?

[@renatobfa]

@@jenniferross2797@jenniferross2797 I see no reason not to. As far as I know, modeling paste is just another type of acrylic ground that they added some thickening agent. And, all canvases I see on the market are pre gessoed anyway, so there's that too. I guess if you would manufacure a canvas from scratch, perhaps It wouldn't hurt to gesso > modeling paste > gesso. But if you buy one pre gessoed from the store, you can apply modeling paste no problem. There is an old video from Golden Acrylics even showing this technic. Its called "Creating a Smooth Surface Using GOLDEN Molding Paste". Good luck.

[@cameronjones7171]

One artist to another, this is art within itself bro. Thank You definitely trying this technique out!

[@theartworkshop]

thanks man. I hear you on that. trying to set up the perfect canvas is one of my favorite things to do

[@jonathanbyrd12]

Hey, I was going to say hopefully I'm not late to the party but I've learned with my stuff that if you use a foam roller instead of a roller that has texture on it or I don't know what they would call that not cloth or like whatever they put on those rollers that make it kind of textury. If you use a foam roller that's just perfectly smooth, it will actually help you out better at getting it perfectly smooth compared to the texture ones. Even though it doesn't seem like it because the texture ones are made to get into the little grooves of whatever you're using it on. I swear the foam roller will also fill those screws but because it's foam and smooth it will it will be so much smoother. I swear big night and day difference at least for me

[@arigatoespacialsuperadmiti7316]

Did you mention "Roll for shipping" can you safely roll a piece of art and it won't crack with this technique? That seems pretty crazy. Gesso is such an special material.

[@TheJoan48]

Thank you so much for bringing me up out of the dark ages. I'm self taught and it's really hard to find good no nonsense vidoes that get to the heart of things like you have here. I truly know how to gesso canvas now. I'm so grateful.

[@theartworkshop]

Happy to hear it! There are a bunch of ways to gesso a canvas though. This is mainly intended for airbrush painting, like the ones I do on this channel.

[@WaynesWorldStudioVancouver]

When you are sanding, use the solid wooden block to cover from the sandpaper. Using the soft sponge over sandpaper will not yield even surfaces. I learned this while working on real world commercial painting. By using a light with warmer tone will allow you to see the uneven surfaces better, otherwise turn off the room light. Thank you for your video, it helps me a lot to get my airbrush going.

[@theartworkshop]

what a awesome tip! thanks so much for this.

[@keviin20061]

Wow! I am so excited about you and your skills. I have been airbrushing for about 34 years now, and just ready to put my work at its best. I ordered a micro and i needed to know about surface. You are a blessing to all of us.

[@kordianronnberg9090]

I'm a hyperrealist who has always used mainly pencil and crayon techniques, because of the surface. Recently I wanted to experiment with painting, to expand the scale and colors. Your previous tutorial on this topic made me think: who needs it, a conservator or a hyperrealist? ;) I am very happy that you showed examples of your work in this video. They are great! Do you sometimes think about Chuck Close (sorry if the question is trivial, but I'm from Poland and the masters of hyperrealism are not so well known here)? Several years ago he inspired me a lot, and I can clearly feel his vibrations, and equally excellent skills in your extraordinary works. Great respect and good luck in building your career!

[@theartworkshop]

Thanks! Yes, Chuck Close was a big inspiration to me early on. I've been to a bunch of of his exhibitions and have seen so many of his paintings here in NY. They are incredible up close! Very interesting techniques with an early CMYK palette.

[@jmcvey-gm9jq]

I love your style/content ♡! Belle Arti Professional Courbet Super Smooth Canvas Rolls (sold at Jerry's), is the smoothest canvas I've found. One pass with the Super Heavy Gesso + Taping Knife, should do it.

[@theartworkshop]

appreciate this. thanks! I'll have to place an order for this canvas soon.

[@MarisaG-g7d]

Going to try this canvas with the heavy gesso. I noticed the canvas you recommended has polyester in it. Does it affect how it stretches when it's time to put the final piece on stretcher bars? Or does it affect how it holds the gesso? Thanks!

[@renaissanceman2841]

Awesome video, it was really helpful. Thanks for making this!

[@theartworkshop]

so glad to hear it. Thanks!

[@Lee-Anne-ow3uo]

Thankyou,very informative,am about to give it a go,wish me luck luck 😊

[@theartworkshop]

You got this! One suggestion that might help- try to start with a smaller one first. Something like an 8x10" just to get the hang of it. Make sure you let it cure for a few days. Hope this helps.

[@sculptor210]

Incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for the time and effort you’ve put into these videos!

[@theartworkshop]

glad to hear it! Thanks so much for the kind words

[@danielsantisteban]

That's what I always wanted, thanks for sharing! Where can we see some oil painting art work applied on those smooth canvases? It would be great to see it work

[@6400az]

Very good. Will try sometime.. Have tried several techniques including wet sanding. If I want a very smooth surface, I water down the gesso and pour it over already gessoed canvas, let dry and then a couple more times. The surface is perfect and has just a slight bit of tooth.

[@jessilynnstar]

Ah, ok I need to do some wet sanding. I had a similar base going with my canvases but hated sanding with all the dust. Will give this a try, ty

[@atlmacman]

Your level of talent is other-worldly. I found your video because my goal is to get a near-perfect solid one-color finish on a 24" pine turntable. You, sir, are an extraordinary artist.

[@theartworkshop]

so very nice of you. It's just practice though! thanks for the kind words.

[@vonrall]

I found when using the taping knife try on each coat alternating the shaping vertically and horizontallyrics rather then in the same direction each time

[@janedevonshire1296]

Thank you for this, very much appreciated 😃 👍

[@theartworkshop]

Very welcome!

[@magcolor]

👍👍👍👍👍 Thanks! I use various construction putties for similar purposes, similar to yours in consistency, they are much cheaper.

[@theartworkshop]

That's great! I agree the gesso gets too expensive, especially for large canvases.

[@animalpower7315]

I recommend if you're new and cannot produce good art don't waste your time and money. Only do this once you are happy with your level of skill.

[@salonitomar2340]

So pessimistic

[@marisadraeger5224]

Brilliant stuff - I love your channel. I just tried this technique and at the end the canvas itself is smooth but up close there’s so many scratches from the sanding that I can’t rid of. Do you think sanding DRY with 400 grit would help to get rid of those final scratches? I’m using it for large scale graphite drawing so I’m trying to get it as smooth as I can without the scratches. Thanks so much!

[@theartworkshop]

thanks! that's the thing about drawing on canvas- it shows every single imperfection. Paint (even thin layers of airbrush paint) do a very good job at hiding those micro scratches. You can let the gesso dry and cure after wet sanding and then use an orbital sander to dry sand up the grits- 220, 400, 800 etc. It's just a ton of extra work, but you can get it as smooth as glass. It's not worth it for me personally. Have you ever tried mounting or stretching hot pressed watercolor paper over a panel? that's an amazing surface to draw on.

[@rebeccapowell2389]

Is there somewhere you can buy canvas with this already done?

[@cyrilpreece2658]

Thanks for this Mark, just tried it and it is fantastic.

[@theartworkshop]

Thanks Cyril. How's the painting going? You getting back into it?!

[@cyrilpreece2658]

Still trying Mark. Will get there one day I’m sure.

[@theartworkshop]

@@cyrilpreece2658 love it hear it!!

[@blankysmith8339]

What would recommend for prepping larger size canvases❓you paint large too. What would you suggest for the backing to prep a 6ft canvas?

[@theartworkshop]

A lot of time for a large canvas I'll just mount it to the wall without stretcher bars. That way it's rigid enough to paint on. When it's finished, I'll remove it from the wall and stretch it on custom stretcher bars.

[@thecentralscrutinizerr]

The way I do it is instead of pulling the gesso in the same direction each time, pull from left to right, then top to bottom. This allows the gesso to get into those low lying areas where pulling in one direction doesn't quite do it. It will eliminate having to go back a re-sand those trouble areas. You may still have to do it, but there won't be as many to do. Also, on the first pass, if you DO apply some pressure to the taping knife, if forces the gesso into the canvas and covers those low lying areas. Not a lot of pressure, you just want to slightly impress the gesso into the canvas instead of merely on the canvas. On the second (or third) coats, no pressure is needed. I pull the slurry from left to right, top to bottom. Comes out smooth as glass.

[@airbrushcustomart1799]

superb chaine tres bonne explication

[@TheBeePlace]

Good stuff Mark. I'm always happy to use your links to show support. I do have a question about lighting. I've struggled with getting good images of paintings due to lighting issues. If you don't mid, what's your set up for photographing and videoing .. or maybe you have a video that shows this end of the process? Thanks, GD

[@theartworkshop]

Thanks so much GD! You know one of the best ways to photograph your paintings is outside when the sun isn't directly above. The morning is great time. Set up your camera on a tripod, low iso, and take multiple exposures of your painting. Then I'll edit them in adobe lightroom to get the photo to match the painting as close as possible. For my main studio setup I use a Nikon Z5 (full frame), a 24-70mm f4 lens, and my lighting is 3 NEEWER CB60 lights which are all fitted with 18" octagonal softboxes. Soft boxes help a lot to diffuse the light. Hope this helps!

[@TheBeePlace]

@@theartworkshop Okay, thanks.... I'll give that a try

[@CT2507]

Very nice method. Is it ok to use a blow dryer to dry the layers of gesso for speedier process?

[@theartworkshop]

Yes, absolutely. But you'll still need to let the gesso cure for at least a day before painting.

[@MarisaG-g7d]

Another great video! I watched this one after your previous version - will definitely try this. What I have on hand now is a Caravaggio Cotton Canvas that is Acrylic Double Primed - will this method work ONLY with unprimed canvas? And secondly, I'm going to try to do large scale graphite drawings in this way -- Have you tried graphite drawings on this surface? Thanks again -- your channel is an absolute gift.

[@theartworkshop]

Thanks so much! Caravaggio canvas is really good stuff. You can smooth out any canvas (primed or not) using extra layers of gesso. I used to do it all the time- works great. Graphite on a smooth canvas works but it is so tricky to get right. Any small scratch or imperfection within the gesso will show up as a highlight or a bright spot on the drawing. I've had luck drawing on small smooth canvases and it works great, but I'm not brave enough to try it on a large canvas. If you try it out, please let me know how it works out for you. Graphite is my favorite medium as well and if I'm working larger, I'm going with a hot pressed paper. Hope this helps and best of luck to you!

[@juliei8166]

This is awesome. Thank you! I left a comment / question on your previous video. I wonder about type of roller you would recommend and see below that someone commented they recommend a foam roller. Could you comment on the best type of roller that won't leave lint etc?

[@theartworkshop]

Glad it's helpful! I generally use the cheapest rollers I can find and just blot the roller with some blue painters tape. That will remove any lint!

[@juliei8166]

@@theartworkshop Thank you so very much for the reply! I appreciate the info! You're awesome.

[@blu12gaming44]

It might not work with super heavy gesso, but Dred FX has a few videos on using a HVLP sprayer with 15% thinned gesso to get smooth (paper) surfaces for airbrushing. Definitely looks interesting.

[@theartworkshop]

Rob at DredFX is always coming up with some awesome stuff. Love his videos. I actually used to spray gesso all of the time when I was working on panels. It works well, but is a pretty big clean up so I stick with using a roller and a taping knife. Applying gesso in general is a messy process- no way around it. Over the last year or so I switched entirely to using the super heavy gesso over my other method that I've been using for well over a decade. The nice thing about super heavy gesso is that it requires less layers. I can now get a canvas smooth in 2-3 coats of super heavy and I can prep a wooden panel smooth with 1 coat. It takes longer to dry and cure before sanding, but it's so much faster and less messy. Hope this helps! Thanks again Blu.

[@sultana_samuel]

This is a fascinating method which i am considering to adopt. However i have a concern about the adhesion of acrylic / oil paint on such a smooth surface. Do you think that these mediums would adhere properly and stand the test of time using this method?

[@theartworkshop]

Thanks- for what I do, it's fantastic. But it's not going to be for everyone. You really just need to test it out over and over and see how things hold up.

[@annika1582]

What if you want the edges of your canvas to be raw? I find it too difficult to estimate how the canvas will stretch before it has been primed. So I’m not sure how best to measure where to end the gesso if the canvas is nailed to a board. (This is for canvas that I buy raw and plan to stretch myself.) On the other hand, I have had trouble sanding stretch canvas, because I get lines from the bars underneath. Thank you for this very helpful and detailed video!

[@theartworkshop]

I always use this technique on raw canvas. What I like to do is stretch the raw canvas over a piece of mdf so that it is rigid enough to paint on and erase into. I apply the gesso to that and go from there. I have 2 other videos showing how I set them up with normal gesso, so check them out if you can. Hope this helps!

[@annika1582]

@@theartworkshop Ah sorry I think I wasn't clear here. I want the edges of the stretched canvas to be raw (no gesso on them). I'm trying to figure out if there's a reliable way to measure that distance without having to stretch the canvas on bars, unstretch it for priming, and the re-stretch after priming.

[@salonitomar2340]

Is there any way to do it without removing it from the stretcher bars? I wouldn't know how to put it back up again

[@theartworkshop]

it's tricky, because the stretcher bars underneath will cause lines to show up on the canvas. This is particularly an issue when sanding. I prefer to buy rolls of blank canvas and prepare them myself.

[@hinddee]

I've tried this smoothing canvas. The first one I had no issues doing a painting. So I made a couple, but with these when I would try and erase it wouldn't erase and would just make grey marks. Any idea what would cause this? I was using Createx Illustration colors and sprayed light layers. I'm wondering if it was the type of canvas? These ones weren't as sturdy as the first one I did.

[@theartworkshop]

I'm not sure, never had that happen to me before. Could it be your eraser?

[@aagg1500]

Sabes si se podría realizar serigrafía sobre lienzo con gesso? Obviamente en lienzo si, pero con gesso no se.

[@MyofascialYoga]

Anyone know if it’s possible to use spackle/putty and then the gesso so you only need one layer? I e been painting on rocks up to now and have always just used putty to smooth the rocks. Anyone know of this technique would translate to a canvas?

[@chintz7428]

I'm going to try drywall mud.

[@DariJohnson-fs2ig]

Wondering why my canvas looks shiny after I sand the gesso? Any advice?

[@theartworkshop]

my canvases always look matte. What gesso are you using? and what type of sandpaper?

[@abbymella-rua7718]

Is this a good surface for alcohol inks? 😊

[@theartworkshop]

yeah should work just fine! best to test it out though

[@natv6294]

Thank you so much for sharing! I’m new and got a question. Would it be possible to reuse a panel I’ve purchased to re-stretch a new canvas once I’m done with a painting? (I like oils and I know it take months for it to dry..) I’m definitely going to save this video! Really appreciate this

[@theartworkshop]

Yes of course! That's what I do. I use panels over and over with new canvases each time.

[@natv6294]

@@theartworkshopThat’s very helpful to know, I really appreciate the help! Do you have any tips or tricks on how to handle the canvases once the painting is done with? Can you still roll it if you apply these heavy layers of gesso? Do you just mount it on a canvas stretcher? Oils will take forever to dry :/ Sorry about all the questions! Just trying to figure out a process and your video was the most helpful to me so far! Thank you for making it.

[@natv6294]

@@theartworkshop Oh I have one last question, Would this technique works with a lighter weight canvas (7 oz) cotton duck for example? Would the painting will be fairly easy to a roll once done drying with oil with these layers of gesso? I’m still practicing a lot and trying to be cost effective… thank you so much again!! I really appreciate this.

[@theartworkshop]

7oz will work. It's lighter than I prefer, but should be fine. The only way to know for sure is to try it out on a demo piece. Paint on it, stretch it, let it dry, roll it up, etc. Always test, test, test before committing to anything. That's what I would do! @@natv6294

[@natv6294]

@@theartworkshop I will definitely do that, thank you so much for the help! And I only recently learned that it’s too light.. I’m still very new to this lol. Will definitely try to get a heavier canvas next, hope you had a nice weekend!

[@reatgydgsrd8606]

Have you tried spray gesso?

[@oldshiny3012]

👍👍

[@jeffsimon3114]

Thanks for another great and informative video. I have a bunch of hot press illustration board, which I would like to use. Would coating it with gesso be advantageous in anyway or should I just leave it as it since the surface is so smooth already?

[@theartworkshop]

thanks man. I've always added 1 or 2 coats of gesso on illustration board (& paper) before painting with an airbrush or with oils. It stops the paper from absorbing the paint! works very well

[@cyrilpreece2658]

Can you get away with just one coat on Arches paper?

[@theartworkshop]

absolutely! One thin coat is all you need on paper. One of my favorite surfaces to paint on

[@cyrilpreece2658]

Thanks Mark

[@carollopez3991]

I don't want a very smooth surface; I only want to refine the surface of the only reasonably priced stretched canvas that is available where I live. In other words, I want to fill those valleys partially and use a gesso that has the right amount of absorbency to be able to paint on it with oils in an expressionist or impressionist style. - so I can scumble, put down washes, build up impasto, etc., and enjoy the surface. Maybe this is the answer...?

[@theartworkshop]

100% agree with you. Sometimes I want texture on some canvases too- especially for oil paints. What I do for a somewhat smooth, but still visible and subtle canvas texture is use less gesso. No more than 3 coats of regular gesso, no more than 1 with super heavy gesso. I apply with a taping knife and then light wet sanding with 220 grit when dry. That way you will still see the texture and feel it under the paint.

[@ianrena1]

Too much gesso or primer latex will not absorb the acrylic to achieve smooth rendition, specially on brush-painted strokes.