Canvas or Panels?
Laura Robb has painted on panels quite a bit over the course of her career, but prefers a stretched canvas over painting on panels glued to a board. If Laura was going outside to sketch, she would definitely switch back to panels since outdoor panels are easier to deal with. The reason Laura prefers a stretched canvas over panels is that she works so much with a painting knife. A painting knife needs some flexibility that the stretched canvas offers. The strokes of the knife do not have the same kind of harshness that they would have on a rigid panel. Some of Laura’s students came up with a work-around that’s interesting: there are canvases that come in a pad, just like paper. Or, you could take a piece of canvas on a roll. The ones on the pads stay nice and flat, and if you put those on a panel and you have some newsprint behind it, it gives a it a little bit more give, like a canvas. If you aren’t set up to stretch your own canvases and all that, the latter may be a good option for you to start with.
Laura has stretched her own canvas for so long, that she does not remember doing anything else. But, that is partly because stretched canvas is not easy to find, especially in custom sizes like Laura prefers.
Bonus note: Laura prefers alkyd primed over acrylic primed, mainly because of the way it takes the paint off her brush and how it tends to be less bright white than acrylic gesso would be. It does matter for Laura what her base/default color is. It is easier to work with, for Laura, when it is not as bright of a white.
To learn from Laura Robb, we recommend her self study or FREE webinar. Find out more by clicking here:
To listen to Laura and Gabor’s full podcast on “Canvas or Panels” click here.