Lots of little jobs today including adding some art-print options to my website and ordering canvas. I like the TopGun canvas I painted on last week but I don't like the stretching process much. Stretcher bars are also rather expensive (£40 for wood and up to £70 for aluminium ones!) AND it seems that cracking and deterioration in paintings is mainly due to a flexible surface instead of a rigid one. So, I've been toying with the idea of sticking the canvas to a solid surface. These paintings are proving expensive now. The canvas is £16 a metre, so I thought that (the normally too expensive) acrylic plastic might be feasible at last.
Lots of options... acrylic is tough and stable and costs about £50 for about £40 of stretchers, PLUS no need to stretch, just glue the canvas on to the surface. Aluminium composite is another option, which is about the same price. Would this be more stable? Big sheets of acrylic might flex and bow. Polycarbonate is at least 50% more expensive. Is this better? It's much tougher but can yellow with age. Wood... too heavy. If I knew the acrylic was rigid I could prime and paint directly on that and ignore the canvas all together... but then every little scratch would show up so the piece would have to be perfect.
Choices choices! Is it better to go for the best and most expensive materials, or compromise? For me, I'm tending towards the best. If anyone assumes a painting is going to be a masterpiece it should be the artist (I mean, why aim to paint a substandard painting..!?), and the most luxurious and perfect bed should be made and set ready for the queen of paintings. If she turns out to be less than regal and a little flaky around the edges then at least she can claim to have a bed fit for a queen.
