FAQ – People occasionally ask “Can I use house paint in art?”
Latex emulsion wall paint looks similar to acrylic so why not use it in paintings? And since matt house paint looks so much like an acrylic gesso primer, can it be used to prime canvas? Isn’t using house paint for preparing canvases a smart way to save money?
My first answer is, of course, you can use anything you want in art. Because your art making should come first, make it how you want to make it and if it ends up in a museum the conservators will figure out a way to take care of it. But then again will house paint give you the surface you want to paint on? If you are selling it your collector might want assurances that their investment is made with artist-quality materials? Is it a false economy?
I think what they are asking is if the cheaper house paint will work the same as artist primer – and unfortunately the answer is no. Here are some reasons why.
The life expectancy of house paint
Emulsion paint (called latex paint in the USA, its full name is latex emulsion paint) is always sloughing off. You may have noticed extra dust on your carpet near the walls. Modern, high-quality, durable wall paint applied well with proper surface preparation can last five or even ten years. Humidity affects this a lot and bathrooms often start peeling sooner. And even good whites will yellow in patches, over time. Exterior house paint is thicker and a bit more flexible but has a life expectancy of only about ten years. The last time I gave my wall a good wipe the sponge came away with white on it, so it seems pretty impermanent and just generally not a good support for a painter’s hard work.
Creating a painting that lasts
The priming of the canvas or board is the foundation of the work, and it is important to get it right. If you would like to construct a sound, durable painting you will want your primer/gesso to be flexible with movement and temperature changes. If using house paint as gesso you will have problems particularly during temperature changes or if your work is stored without humidity control.
They say that Jackson Pollock was a frequent user of house paints and some of his paintings are not lasting very well, in spite of the very high-end treatment they receive. Also household emulsion isn’t designed to prevent oil penetrating the canvas, so I doubt if it will work safely for oil painting.
Some examples of the instability and inflexibilty of house paint
I took this photo of the wall in my flat. After less than five years the emulsion wall paint started cracking in many places. This is from an interior wall of our flat. And our building flexes and moves a lot less than a springy stretched canvas does. Emulsion house paint doesn’t make a stable foundation for a painting.
One of many large, long cracks in the wall paint in my flat.
Interior wall paint with tears from the engineer changing a switch.
Interior wall paint with cracks, six months after painting.
Interior wall paint with cracks, six months after painting.
A damp patch where the household emulsion wall paint is peeling off.
Canvas primers
Primer/gesso for fine art painting is designed to have the right amount of
1. absorbency for painting on
2. tooth
3. to be opaque white for canvas coverage
Household paint is only designed with opacity (maybe) in mind.
There is also a big difference between low-quality primers and good ones. I have heard of cheap primers flaking, bubbling and crazing. A cheap gesso can also be unpleasantly slick to paint on or become gooey when wetted.
Art
Not all art is about permanence. If you are making work that you don’t intend to last you can paint with anything on anything. If you sell your work though, you will probably want to let the buyer know if you used materials that will fade or flake so that they know that what they are buying won’t have a long life.
This popular post was given a refreshing update on 4th August 2018.
Click on the underlined link to go to the Primers Department on the Jackson’s Art Supplies website. Postage on orders shipped standard to mainland UK addresses is free for orders of £39.
Hi Jack and friends
WOndering if you could help me with a query i had..?
I’m planning to make quite a large painting on a large square of free canvas rolled out on the ground.
I’m using a roll of preprimed basic canvas..
So my query is as i’d like to thicken it out with extra primer of some sort, making it stronger yet quiet malleable to roll.
I would like to make this light enough canvas almost weighed and aged by the application kind of like the feeling of an old wax jacket. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a oil finish, as im not sure if im going to be using oil or acrylic yet.
Im planning to paint on the ground in public and it will take a lot time to finish so ill be rolling it up and out many times, taking it out and bring home everyday, therefore these extras layers will make the large sheet of canvas just more substantial as in durable also.
If anyone gets the kind of feel for how i want to process this pretty flimsy large rectangle of canvas, before i take it on to the street then Please let me know what i should do, or any suggestions would be appreciated greatly thanks.
Regards from Berlin,
Niall D.
Hi Niall
An acrylic primer will be flexible enough to roll but they vary a lot in how “waxy” they are or how absorbent they are.
The ones with “gesso” in the name will be more chalky.
I am doing a sample board of the different primers at the moment to get a more definitive answer.
I can give you a better answer when that is finished.
Until then you might want to try our new forum – ask your question of other artists who may have had a similar experience.
http://www.artsuppliesforum.co.uk – take just 1 minute to register (name and email).
Hello, I’m working on a big canvas 22”x44” and I’m going
to add a clear epoxy resin as top coat, I’m new to canvas
work but I do a lot of epoxy work over countertops and
tables, my question is can I use latex paint as a base
color and do dirty pour painting with a acrylic paint, the
majority is black and that what I wonder to use in latex.
Thank you
Hi Nedal
You can use latex house paint as your canvas primer but you will not get as good a result as you would with artist primer. They are not designed or tested for the same purposes.
I was in the paint business for
over 20 years with
professionals that that applied
house paint by the thousands
of gallons I hate to tell all of
you this if house paint only
lasted 5 to 10 years we would
have all been stoned to death I
have houses that have had
paint on for 50 years you’re
not going to take your painting
and sit it outside in all kind of
weather conditions when it
comes to painting it never
hurts to put a sample on and
watch it to see how it will work
I was a painter decorator for 40 odd
years. I agree with you. put a gesso
panel outside in the weather next to a
panel painted with external masonry
paint ( sandtex etc ) I know which
one my money would be on. As far as
emulsion only lasting 10 years I have
see plenty that is 20 or 30 years old
and sound enough but for
discolouration.
Hi just saw your comment. I’m
more interested in your name . Are
you in England. My father was
Richard Brewer . It’s the Brewer
name actually. My cousin does our
family tree.
what about mixing emulsion paint with top bond glue
in addition to @Adamson’s question.. can I add a little
portion of water when mixing the white top bond glue &
emulsion?
Hi guys
I see there are lots of people who wish to use latex /emulsion house paint for priming canvases for fine art work. It sounds like there are people who promote using it for a primer if you mix it with glue.
This may work but I cannot recommend it. House paint is designed to last for 10 years or less before it flakes off. Fine art painting should last for over 100 years. House paint wipes off on a sponge. Canvas primer is designed for the purpose and is the recommended product for creating a stable structure for a painting.
If using house paint is part of the aesthetic or concept of the work, the artist and any purchaser just need to be aware of the shortened life of the work.
GESSO, invented 1950…. 100 years…2050?
@adamson, although am also here with exactly the same question; all through my days at school where i studied fine and applied art, we hav been making use of Emulsion(latext paint) together with white bond glue for priming, but not without a certain percentage of both materials, I could remember having our paintings peeling off or the surface of the canvas being slippery when making brush movements on it because of the inaccurate mixture proportion. when the the percentage of the bond added is too much in the mixture it can cause the slippery condition, and when Emotion latext paint content is over the normal percentage it can cause the peeling of condition or even resulting to the painting drying up fast and looking chalky, but all this happens at a long run. why we don’t use the gesso primer is due to how scarce and expensive it could be down here for we Art students in africa. pls if u hav any idea for improving on this method u kindly drop ur advice here or to my Email, stephenekene91@gmail.com, Am Steve and am chating from Nigeria
How about painting the wood with emulsion
initially after it has completely dried up, then
priming it later on with a gloss paint?
Hi Emmanuel
The same problem is still there – house paint is made to flake off and to last for ten years. It looks similar to artists primer but it is not really like it. It will not make a sound support for an artwork you wish to last for a long time.
Please Julie Caves I need a reply on what Steve
posted
Hi Emmanuel
I wrote an answer to everyone about 3 weeks ago, sorry it wasn’t clear.
I don’t know about adding glue to house paint. I know that house paint is not designed to last and gesso is.
For anything else you may just need to experiment.
What about an answer to Donald’s
logical question please?
Hi Maya.
If he means that it hasn’t been 100 years since it was invented, so how do we know, then one answer is artificial aging machines. They are used all the time by art materials manufacturers and art conservators to test materials. With the correct stress settings a month in the box is very similar to 100 years of UV and heat and humidity changes. A similar method is used to test the lightfastness of pigments over 100 years. And archival inkjet pigment inks say they have a longevity of over 50 years for the same reason. I was shown one on one of my tours of the Winsor & Newton labs and I know conservators in Italy who have a waiting list to use theirs.
Touché
Hi,
I’m a beginner in Oil paintings, which I plan to paint on
wood & I was wondering if I can use Wood Primer to
seal my canvas or is it the same as using ‘house
paint’.
Hi Ellisa
I’m not familiar with Wood Primer.
If it seals the wood and provides a surface for paint to stick to, it sounds fairly permanent.
Will it go on the wood before the canvas or after on the canvas itself?
How are you sticking the canvas to the wood?
GESSO, invented 1950…. 100 years…2050?
Hi, interesting site. Was glad I read about not using
house paint as a primer. I am going to paint on birch
panel – and was planning to use Golden Gesso to prep the
side I will paint on. But was thinking of using regular
acrylic house paint to seal the back side. Understanding
that housepaint only lasts about 10 years, I am hoping
that two coats of it will last longer than that – of course, it
could always be “refreshed” in the future. Wonder if
varnish or polyethelene sealant might be better for the
back side ?
hi i was wondering if all purpose primer is the same as
house paint?
I had a very traditional art training and one of the things impressed on us was never use
house paint of any kind under any circumstances. It simply won’t last. Some galleries are
pretty particular about surfaces and will ask what make and type of primer you used. I
know of one quite well known painter who uses emulsion as a primer – if his gallery only
knew, they’d go mental.
An interesting rule of thumb: if it won’t outlast you, don’t use it.
Great site! My question is after a pour is
dry, do I need to wipe off the painted
canvas before I put a gloss? And what is
the best gloss? Thanks
Thanks for the explanation about why not to use
emulsion paint, but I have been wondering lately about
creating an artwork that deliberately flakes off the
canvas. But I want it to happen in a short amount of
time, in a controlled manner and size of flakes. So I
was considering using some sort of combination of
gloss paint and emulsion, any thoughts?
PS: there’s a typo in your last paragraph – don’t should
be doubt, I think.
Hi Nick
It sound like an interesting project. I would think a test surface with a grid of your test applications would yield some good information. For making new furniture look vintage there is a method of applying Vaseline or wax to part of the surface and then painting over it, then sanding back a bit until you reach the paint that has adhered properly. So some sort of resist like that would work. A mix of gloss and emulsion might take too long and be powdery rather than forming regular size chips. But it could also bubble nicely and the bubbles will chip off. Sounds like it is worth a test. There are a few videos and blog posts out there with techniques for adding rock salt and other things that will fall off, so try some of those. There is also Golden Crackle Paste that if applied thickly makes large cracks around ‘plates’ that might be able to be chipped off.
(Thanks for letting me know about the typo, I have corrected it.)
This is a great site!
I’d like to know if it’s true, that house gloss/satin paint
is made with acrylic, and virtually the same as artist’s
acrylic paint? I’m very close to ordering several litres
from a friend, who assures me it’s the same, but to be
honest, I have my doubts…he manufactures paints,
small scale, in Lagos, Nigeria.
I want to use the paints, after applying a couple of
coats of homemade gesso, on birch plywood, as my
canvas.
Please advise, anyone who knows – thanks !
Hi Mama Yusuf
From what I can tell some house paints may contain some acrylic as part of their ingredient list. The main thing is that house paints are formulated with the primary concern of streak-free brushing and rollering and many other characteristics needed for applying wall paint – all at a cheap price for a lot of paint. This means the concerns for house paint are not the same concerns as for artist paint: flexibility for use on a flexible stretched canvas surface as well as possible rolling up, long life – over 100 years, no delamination, cracking, bubbling, flaking, etc.
Some house paints may be 100% acrylic but I would be surprised at the price if that were so.
I think the key point here is that house paints are simply
not archival quality (or even anything close to that
standard)
The costs of primer compared to the costs of the other
items we regularly use in quantity (paint, canvas,
stretcher bars, wooden supports, brushes, mediums etc)
is minimal and to use house paint is clearly a false
economy if you consider the lifespan of your painting, and
the ill will a failure would cause if you sell you works.
There is one very well known painter lifelike landscape
painter on youtube who has a video where he primes his
panels with house paint. I wouldn’t recommend buying
one of his paintings. As good as they look now, chances
are on 5-10 years they’ll be in flakes on your floor like
dandruff.
As painters who care about their works we owe the future
owners the integrity of ensuring our works persist by
using correctly archival materials, not cutting corners for
something cheapo and easy instead.
Jacksons, it would be interesting to see a piece from
some of the archivists/restorers from some of the bigger
museums/galleries talking about some of the problems
they’ve encountered when artists of time past have used
less than desirable materials that haven’t stood the test
of time.
We are all aware of thew issues Joshua Reynolds had with
bitumen etc (even within his own lifetime), but even Tuner
was known for a less than satisfactory material choice
(fugitive colours, non archival supports etc)
[…] and it’s white so why would it be any different to the primer or gesso we sell at Jackson’s? This post by Julie Caves explains why this is ill advised. The other reason is as an artistic statement – maybe you want to make a comment about […]
[…] 13. Priming your canvas with house paint […]
Primers are very important for the stability and beauty of the
wall. For a good wall primers should have an absorbency for
painting on, tooth and to be opaque white for canvas
coverage.
And GESSO was invented in the 1950’s with the promise of
enduring flexibility… Actually, NO one actually knows…. It
has not been around for 200 years to see. Any reply’s?
Hi Donald
There are no tests to suggest that it would deteriorate. True that acrylic gesso has not been around for many hundreds of years, however it is pH neutral and flexible when dry so we have every reason to believe it will last for hundreds of years. I am interested in the issue of permanence and intend to write an article about this soon. If you care to share why permanence is so important to you please do.
Many thanks
Lisa
Can I use gesso to prime some timber
in my house? I have gesso but no
undercoat.
Hi Sally,
Is it acrylic gesso? And is the timber staying indoors? If yes to both then I don’t see any reason why not…
Many thanks
Lisa
Hello Julie,
Thank you for a great blogpost, not at all what I wanted to hear,
but informative all the same!
I want to stop using toxic paints in my art which is why I’d been
looking at eco friendly household paints. I’d like to still be able to
layer up, achieve texture, create 3D relief etc. But for it to still
last, say 50 years or more. I had been looking at Lakeland Eco
paints and Earthborn paints (both claim to be eco and have no
plastics). Current project is being paid for I have more cash to
spend. Any ideas Julie or Lisa?
Thank you in anticipation!
Susannah
Hi Susannah!
Sounds like a good mission!
My first thought when seeing that you want to remove plastic and toxic substances from your work, was to use oil paint.
There are three things to consider when looking at toxicity-
The first consideration for toxicity would be the pigment in the paint. Whether household or artist paint they all contain pigments. If you avoid the heavy metals like cobalt, cadmium, chrome and lead colours, you will have a non-toxic palette. Fortunately, avoiding these colours will also save you money as they are also the expensive pigments.
Then the second thing to think about is the binder. If you want to avoid plastic you have a few choices. You can use oil paint – which is made from linseed oil, safflower oil, walnut oil or poppyseed oil – all non-toxic. (The higher-end oils contain just two ingredients: oil & pigment. Student-level oils may contain fillers and driers, so for the simplest ingredient list look to the more expensive paints.) Another non-plastic, eco-friendly binder would be egg yolk – egg tempera has a beautiful matt surface and doesn’t have the longer drying time of oil paint. Watercolour uses a tree gum. If you want to paint with a hot paint you could try encaustic where the pigment is mixed with beeswax and is applied warm – it dries quickly, as soon as it cools.
And the last thing would be to consider what hazardous products you would need to use with the paint to make it work well.
Oil paint can be used without solvents – many oil painters have non-toxic studio set-ups and thin their paints only with oil or use water-soluble oils.
Egg tempera uses water. Watercolour uses water. Encaustic uses heat.
You say you’d like to be able to layer, create texture and dimension. You can do this with oil paint by thickening it with alkyd gels, which are partially dried oils that are quite thick. You can add sand and other aggregates to oil paint for texture. To get very dimensional some oil painters use Cold Wax, although it has solvent in it to make the wax spreadable, so it might not be right for you. Encaustic is great for mixed media, texture and embedding things. It is semitransparent for layering. I don’t think there are any household paints that have any transparency for layering.
I hope that this is helpful. I’d love to hear what you decide in the end.
Thank you for your quick and very detailed
reply Julie. I’ve been doing some more
research and I think my eco-aim (for now!)
is going to be preventing any art materials
from going down the sink. And limit how
much goes to landfill. So thinking of
encaustic process you mentioned with oil
sticks (no brushes to wash!). I guess I will
have to use an acrylic gesso to prime my
board with though? Assuming I can’t use
encaustic on cardboard? Can I use oil
sticks on paper or cardboard or would it
need to be primed?
Thank you again Julie!
Susannah
ps. By the way, I didn’t get an email
notification that you had replied.
Hi Susannah
Oil sticks are oil paint with a tiny bit of wax so you should think of it as oil paint. This means that the paper or card surface will need to be sealed if you want it to last.
Using encaustic won’t mean you stop using brushes but those brushes will be dedicated to wax and they will not be washed in the sink. So yes that works towards your aims.
Encaustic requires a rigid surface. Paper, card and stretched canvas are too flexible, it needs to be a wood panel or very heavy stiff cardboard. Encaustic doesn’t stick well to acrylic gesso/primer as it isn’t porous enough, it needs to be either encaustic primer or genuine gesso made from chalk and rabbit skin glue. Genuine gesso means there is no plastic but the hide glue is an animal product which might be a concern for you. If you like the colour of the wood you can use encaustic and oil directly on unprimed wood, though it is quite absorbent.
I recently watched that fake or fortune programme where they
mentioned an artist mixed household emulsion with something to
resemble oil paint, I can’t remember what that other ingredient
was ,do you know?
Hi Danielle
I didn’t see it but I had a search and this might be it-
“Also, if you haven’t got any oil paints, try mixing ordinary household emulsion with KY Jelly. Now there’s a trick.”.
If you google the text you should find the link.
But I have no idea if it will work properly. KY Jelly is a water soluble personal lubricant, it sounds like an odd combination that wouldn’t work as artist paint.
I also work a lot with cardboard, paint, collage over it etc and then
use a UV varnish over the top, as I’ve only been doing this five
years I’ve no idea how long I can expect my art to last? I’m
thinking what about Warhol’s cardboard boxes, they are still
around and Schwitters collages ? And he probably didn’t have the
option of UV varnish, advice?
Hi Danielle
That’s a good question. I don’t know what the details about UV sprays – how much protection it gives. I have emailed a technician at a manufacturer to ask if they can provide some specifics and times. I’ll post here when I get the information.
Thank you for your help Julie, I will have a
go!
Hi,
I want to use oil paints but I don’t want
the surface to be too smooth and
specially hate it when paint ‘slips’ right
off. What do u suggest? Do I need a
heavy thick coarse canvas? Or is the
primer what gives it that quality?
Hi Farwa
It sounds like you would benefit from painting on an absorbent primer more than a coarse-textured canvas. But maybe both would suit you best.
Lascaux and Golden both make some nicely absorbent gessos.
We are looking to do a massive canvas to fill
wall space. It will be abstract tones and we
are okay with a short lifespan. So we are
going to latex house paint to save cost.
But the question is, should we still use
gesso as the primer? Or should we use a
latex primer? (Does an acrylic primer pair
with non-acrylic paint?)
Hi Bradley
If you don’t need the painting to last and you are painting with house paint you can prime with house paint as well.
At Canberra School of Art in the 1980s,
the canvas-sealing formula (either for oil
or acrylic painting) was: 3 parts ceiling
white housepaint: 1 part Bondcrete (a
concrete sealing PVA) : 1 part PVA glue.
I’d imagine marble dust or some other
kind of stone dust could be added to
create a ‘tooth’. Hope that helps.
Hi Ross
Thanks for this. Why did you make your own ground, did you not have access to gesso there or was this cheaper? How did it perform, are paintings that were made then still holding up?
Hello Julie,
First off, thank you so much for your feedback and apologies in advance if I ask a question which has already been asked.
I prefer priming my canvases with GESSO and that is certainly not going to change. My first question is this : how would household latex paint react if put on a properly GESSO primed canvas? I have done it on many occasions in the last few years but now I am wondering if all my paintings will start cracking in ten years time because of the household paint…
Second question: in your opinion, would mixing in a professional level medium (Liquitex Matte Medium for example) to household paint help give it more flexibility and prevent cracking ten years down the road?
Thanks
Maxime
Hi Maxime
A properly primed surface would always help and if your paintings were varnished that should help.
My best guess is that it would help to add medium because that should seal the paint better.
In addition to cracking, most wall paint will come off on a sponge if you need to scrub a dirty area. So the paint is not bound well. It is designed to come off so you can clean off layers.
So you should be able to test if mixing in medium has improved the household paint by scrubbing it when it is dry.
I hope that is useful.
Could u please tell me if there other
brands of gesso or primer that compares
to liquid white from Bob Ross at a lesser
price.
Hi Betty
We have a blog post on how to make your own. It is very simple, uses just three ingredients, and has been done for centuries. It is also more economical than pre-made products.
LIQUID WHITE OIL COLOUR FOR ALLA PRIMA TECHNIQUES
I hope that helps.
I use egg tempera on pure gesso ground and
I wondered if I was to paint here and there
with acrylic paint on this ground would there
be any problems with adhesion later on?
Thank you
Hi Beverley
Painting acrylic on the genuine gesso will be fine. But is it not usually recommended to paint acrylic on top of egg tempera. Egg tempera is more akin to oil paint and there may be adhesion problems with the acrylic after it dries.
Thank you Julie – so its a matter of
keeping areas separate or using oil
based paints instead? Just
experimenting at the moment!
Hi Beverley
I’m sorry I don’t understand the question, keep what areas separate? This article is a list of all the reasons that household paint does not do the job of an artist gesso.
Oil-based household paint would be a worse solution as a primer as that means oil will be touching the canvas and that is part of the reason you prime the canvas, to prevent oil from touching the canvas.
I saw that questions on the article
related to grounds for painting so my
question was relating to using egg
tempera on pure gesso ground but
combining this with another medium
such as acrylic or oil – from your first
answer I presumed you were saying that
oil paint will work better in this
combination than acrylic but if I did use
acrylic then to make sure it doesn’t
touch the egg tempera areas as there
would be adhesion problems. As egg
tempera mixes with water (like acrylic )
I was checking this. Sorry for any
confusion and if this may be departing
from initial area of expertise – thank you
though for your time
Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn’t follow.
It’s because the acrylic will seal the pores of the gesso and make it non-absorbent. The egg tempera needs an absorbent surface to stick to or as you build up your layers, your next layer of tempera will wipe off the first layer of tempera, because it hasn’t gripped into the surface.
Hi again. Yes, it should work if you
keep them separate, don’t paint
with the egg tempera on top of the
acrylic.
Thank you for the information..
Hi there
Unfortunately, I used emulsion as a
primer. Would it be a good idea to use
fixative or varnish spray/medium to make
my paintings last longer?
if you could suggest some solutions, I will
be very grateful.
Thanking you in advance.
Regards
Robert
PS: since I leave my email address here,
will I get your answer via email? or should
I check this site for the answer?
If you would not mind, please let me know
(via email) if you can.
Hi Robert,
It really depends on the specifics of the emulsion you used, and I would suggest getting in touch with the manufacturer of the emulsion and asking. I suspect that a varnish will seal the surface, preventing moisture from being absorbed by the painting, which should minimise the risk of cracking, but we cannot guarantee this without knowing the emulsion you have used.
Many thanks
Lisa
Fluid acrylic art is growing and growing in
popularity. Many artists are choosing to
use emulsion paint for their canvas base
coat before continuing their pour with
acrylic paints. If I’ve understood you
correctly, this emulsion paint will only
stand up for roughly ten years, before risk
of flaking off? even if it has also been
varnished?
Hi,
I would say the risk of paint cracking, be it house paint or fine art paint, is largely dependent on the conditions in which the applied paint is kept. If the substrate is a flexible one such as canvas, the paint is unlikely to crack if the canvas is not flexed or moved around, so the recommendation would be to stretch it to a frame tightly and evenly and try not to put any weight on it. A rigid support such as a panel will not move, and so any risk of cracking would be as a result of extreme changes in temperature or humidity. If temperature and humidity is kept relatively constant, then the paint will not crack. Varnishing will certainly help with keeping the paint surface away from dust and grime. We cannot guarantee how long a coat of emulsion will last, but we can advise that applying it to a rigid substrate in thin and even layers, and keeping it away from dust and dirt in an environment that does not experience extremes in temperature and humidity will prolong its lifespan.
Many thanks
Lisa
May I use gesso on vinyl posters and
then paint with house paint followed by
using varnish or a spray medium sealer.
Hi Bette Ann
You can do whatever you want to, you are the artist. If you are asking if the vinyl surface, the acrylic primer, housepaint and varnish will all be compatible for a painting that is stable for many years, I don’t know. It is an experimental combination so you will need to try it out and see if things seem to adhere. And if you sell it write on the back all the ingredients so if needed people can figure out how to conserve it in the future.
Hi Julie
Thank you for this useful site.
I would like to do a watercolour painting
for my first grandchild’s room but live in
an area with no accessible art supplies. I
am not a professional but do enjoy my art.
I plan to make my own streched canvas
using calico fabric. In order to create a
suitable surface for watercolours, could I
use a cheap contractors white PVA
(ceiling paint) to prime the canvas (will it
be porous enough for the watercolour
paint?) I do plan to use a clear lacquer
spray to fix then a water based varnish to
protect the finished painting. It doesn’t
need to last more than 5 years.
Watercolour doesn’t stick to PVA, it usually just beads up and you can’t make it flow right.
If you painted a Watercolour Ground on top of the PVA, that will give you a surface similar to painting on paper.
Hi i’m using cheap emulsion from the
dollar store, i mix it with pva, will that
work? I’ll be mostly using acrylic art
paint on top of it
Hi
That mixture will create a ground on the canvas for painting with acrylic, so yes it will work. But it doesn’t sound like a mixture that would last as long as an artist primer. It depends if you want to make a cheap painting or a painting that will last. Also it depends if the surface it creates is the texture and slipperiness you like to paint on. If you are using the canvases for practice and you like the surface that your mixture creates, then you can of course use it.
The cheap emulsion is not designed to last for centuries. And the quality of the many types of PVA varies greatly, some is very acidic and will peel and yellow.