October 23rd, 2016

Working artist...Canvas building

I'm busy in the wood shop building new cradled wood panels for art work planned for this winter.  My medium is fiber art, specifically, torn paper collage paintings. 
I layer lots of paper and glue and more paper and glue on my artwork, so the canvas needs to be a solid, durable substrate.  The wood canvases hold great for the weight of the material--traditional fabric canvases tend to sag.

There's a lot of "working artist" work that I don't like--namely, paper work and accounting.  But wood shop work is totally different--I love the step by step process of building my art canvases!  I usually build six to ten panel canvases at a time, so it takes a lot of forethought to consider what sizes to build for the subjects I have in mind. 

My canvases:  I use quarter inch birch high grade plywood for the canvas surface and create the cradle--the support structure--from quality one-by (1"x2" sticks, usually 8' long).  The sheets come in 4'x8' panels which I have cut down to rough canvas sizes at the building store.  I re-cut the sheet edges at home--making cleaner cuts and squaring up pieces. 
When attaching the top sheet to the cradle support, I glue and air staple.  Once the glue dries, the finished canvas is super strong and durable. 

The staples in the canvas are covered with plastic bond material and sanded after drying.  Then the panel is ready to seal with primer paint--important given the wood panel must hold up to lots of wet glue and paper.

Once sanded and sealed, the final canvas is ready for art work--my favorite part!