Poor Man's Stretch and the Paint Report

Let's bang those out in reverse order.

I do like Rustoleum as the liquid oil medium. However, not all pigments react the same with the oil and the water. The blues tend to float a bit, then disperse the water while the heavy greens tend to sink and displace much more than they float and disperse (90 percent sink, the rest floats).

Masking tapes, small lines of clear glue such as Elmer's, even careful application of water on a level canvas can all control the spread of the paint. One need not create deep wells, outlines and molds into which to pour the liquids. However, it is demanding when it comes to creating a specific image, from island to detail on a flag on a boat, for example. Harder than "regular" drawing.

More or less:

1 gal each R. Gloss White, Gloss Black, Sail Blue oils
qts each of green, safety blue, purple, gray, silver, aluminum, red oils
qts each of yellow, navy, white, green, black, red acrylics
small cans of yellow, brown, and sand oils
various tube acrylic and oils
pumice gel
1 gal gesso

150 mounted 1" canvases, varying sizes (16x20 up)
80 yards of 52-inch rolled, once gessoed Frederick's canvas

I set up the workspace with several folding tables, creating a U-shaped flat area of about 52 square feet, roughly uniform height. There is also room on another table area elsewhere for additional storage and drying. All tools and working paints are easily managed on the U, as are up to three 30x40 inch canvases (and some change left over for a small piece or two) in various stages of production.

I keep the paint in tattoo ink bottles of different sizes, 2-oz to 16-oz, some with nozzles that can vary the flow. While I do dip in the larger paint containers with ladles up to four ounces in content and apply that directly to canvas, too, I find the nozzled bottles to be a great way to control flow and keep paint handy in closed containers.

The raw canvas MUST be gessoed, at least twice more. And stretched. Otherwise it wrinkles with moisture in the air, and when I apply a cup or five of water to it and the oil paints it turns into the hairless surface of an ice-cold scrotum almost, with wrinkles. I jest, but you get the point.

I opted for a 1/4" 48x48 piece of plywood with four rugged clamps -- much like the clamps on a battery charger but without the jagged teeth -- so I can at least fight the wrinkles. It's not a clear win with the stretch like a full mounting would offer, but it's OK for what I want to do now.

And that is burn the bulk canvas with hands-on training.

I chose the one-inch mounts for compromise reasons. One, with Aaron Brothers biannual one-cent sale I could get two for the price of one. While the two-inch mounts look more cool and professional when hanging alone on a wall, the one-inchers don't look bad and more to the point can be framed, I think, easier and more affordably.

While not every painting needs a frame, a lot of people want the frame as much as the painting. So, I paint to look good either way. It really doesn't matter to me, the frame argument, at least not now.