Welcome to

by Linda Carson

big black pig studio
98 King St. N., Waterloo Ontario Canada
www.bigblackpig.com

Supports & Grounds

The structure that you paint on, whether it's canvas, paper or a hunk of driftwood, is called a support. Its job is obviously to support the paint. A good support is as light as possible, as strong as necessary, and less flexible than the paint. Watercolours need a paper support. They work, in part, by soaking into the page. Oils are usually painted on canvas or a wooden panel. Acrylics... well, acrylics will stick to darned near anything. When you start working with a new paint, one of your first questions should be, "What supports are suitable for this medium?"

The ground is any kind of primer you might apply to the support to seal it and prepare a good foundation for the paint. A good ground prevents paint damaging the support and the support damaging the paint. The most common ground is a special artist's primer called gesso. Traditional gesso is made fresh in the studio with hide glue (such as rabbitskin glue) and whatever cheap white pigment is about. Today many artists use commercially prepared acrylic gesso instead.

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Loosely translated, that means:
"Please don't copy this material or redistribute it in some other form, for any reason. This is my livelihood."