The musings of a fantasy illustrator. Artwork, art-talk, and randomness.

Monday, March 01, 2010

Tips & Techniques: Paper Over Masonite

Almost everything on my site these days reads that it was painted in "Oils on paper over masonite." But what does that mean, and why would you bother? Rather than type a lot, I decided to talk a lot. Hopefully this is useful. As this video blog is a first for me, you'll forgive my forgetting to get a piece of info in! So, more follows after you've watched:


"Desserts and cheeses"


Post-notes: my cat decided to chime in during the middle of it, which is odd because he meows maybe twice a year. My wife asked what I was doing at the very end when I'm standing. Nothing, I'm just rolling one or two more bits last-second after lifting it up, before setting it to dry, having seen some of the edges needed more rolling.

More importantly, I mentioned that I sometimes cut my paper to size, but not always. In this demonstration, I did not. I forgot to mention one thing to keep in mind if you choose to not cut down to size before mounting, and that is that the corners may begin to curl away from the board as it dries. This can be solved while still wet once the rolling is done and you've set it to dry by taking a pair of scissors and trimming in at each corner to the board, releasing any tension that might occur. Here, allow me to illustrate:


Upside down view, but doesn't need to be done upside-down.

And it goes without saying (I hope) that when it dries you'll trim the extra paper off before beginning to paint, and that wherever you set the whole thing to dry, it should continue being raised off the surface with a book or plate or something beneath it. Well that's all for today

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