Canvas painting panels are the perfect solution if you like the weave of a canvas but not the ‘bounce’ that you get when canvas is stretched on a stretcher bar frame. You can enjoy painting on a rigid surface that has the texture of your favourite primed or unprimed canvas by fixing it onto a wooden panel. In this post I take you through the steps of creating a canvas panel for painting.
Making a Canvas Painting Panel
There are other reasons you might want to paint on a canvas panel. A thin panel will fit in a pochade box for plein air painting, where a stretched canvas will not. In addition to the bounce during painting, a stretched canvas can be more difficult to store safely. Essentially you are dealing with a relatively inflexible paint layer adhering to a flexible material, which can be easily dented or squashed, which can lead to the paint cracking or flaking off. A rigid surface is required for some mediums such as encaustic painting where the flex of a stretched canvas would crack the surface. Also, it is considered more conservationally sound to use a rigid surface for oil painting, to prevent cracking over time, though with large paintings stretched canvas may sometimes be a better choice as you also have to balance the considerations of weight and transportability.
You can purchase ready made canvas panels but if you make your own you can get exactly the size, depth and canvas you want. It’s a straightforward process to make your own custom canvas panels and you can make a stack in an afternoon.
Mounting Canvas to a Painting Panel
Choose a Rigid Surface
The Jackson’s Smooth Plywood Panels are great if you want an edge of wood around the back side so you can hang the panel on a screw or attach a wire for hanging; it can be a standard depth or a deep-edged panel. You can also use many other rigid surfaces like wood, MDF or Gatorfoam board. For panels that fit into plein air painting pochade box slots you will need a thin, un-cradled panel like MDF, mountboard, or either size of the Multimedia Artboard panels – the 3.2mm ready-to-mount boards that comes with glue already applied or the ultra-thin 0.8mm boards.
Cut Your Canvas Piece
A great way to minimise waste is to save any off cuts of canvas that you might have after stretching canvas to make your own small canvas panels, or you can purchase canvas by the metre. When cutting your piece of canvas be aware that the glue will wet your canvas and it may shrink a few mm as it dries, so cut it a few mm larger than your panel. I trace around the panels (on the wrong side of the canvas if it’s primed) with a pencil and then cut a little outside the line. Lining up the panel with the weave before you trace around it looks tidy and reduces the distraction of a slightly diagonal grid pattern.
Apply the Adhesive
The most commonly used glues are soft acrylic gel, PVA for a permanent bond, or re-moistenable PVA to allow the painting to be removed from the panel in the future by wetting with water. It’s important to use a glue that is Ph neutral, and beneficial to use a PVA that won’t dry hard, because the glue will not deteriorate over time, and it will be flexible enough to withstand changes in humidity in the environment too. Brush your chosen adhesive evenly onto your wooden panel. Do not be skimpy as most glues shrink a lot as the water evaporates and you can end up with too thin a layer.
Apply the Canvas
I lay the canvas on the table and lower the glued panel down onto it because I can see the edges better to line things up, but you can also lay the canvas on from above. Then smooth it with a brayer/roller or a palette knife and work out all air pockets as you go, paying particular attention to getting the edges pushed down.
Dry it Under Pressure
Glue needs to be firmly in contact with both side of what it is gluing. If it does not have pressure pushing the canvas against the glue and board, then the glue will shrink away from the fabric, create a dried skin between itself and the board or canvas and you may only have a few spots glued well. (This is true for all PVA type gluing, including when you are gluing a wooden batten to the back of an aluminium panel.)
Lay your board with the canvas side down and place heavy weights on the back so it dries under pressure. You can make a few boards and as each one is finished add it to the stack under the weights. When stacking be sure to line up them up pretty evenly or add a larger board in between, so there is pressure all the way to each corner. If you are using cradled panels like these face them in pairs towards one another and stack, this helps create even pressure. Another good way to create pressure is to put a plain board against the front and use four strong clamps all around to press the canvas flat and let it dry for a day. I use clamps if I am doing one or two boards and weights if I am doing more, because I don’t have enough clamps.
Trim the Canvas Even
When it’s dry put the panel face down and trim the canvas flush with the edge of the board using a utility knife. It is so much easier with a new sharp blade, so be sure to snap off your knife.
Priming
If you have used primed canvas you may not need to do any priming, however you may wish to add another layer of primer to any ready-primed canvas to make the surface smoother. You can choose chalky and absorbent gesso primer which is great for encaustic or non-absorbent for oil paint or many other characteristics. Apply one to three coats of primer, smoothing it as you like with a brush, palette knife or squeegee. With acrylic primer any brushmarks will become less visible as it dries and shrinks.
If you are using a panel with sides and you will be priming the surface you will need to decide if you want to prime the sides white or leave them bare wood. If you wish to leave them bare wood, the use of masking tape is a great way to keep the sides clean, as I have done with the green tape shown below.
Treating the Sides
If you are affixing the canvas to a cradled panel and have left the sides bare wood you can still treat them to keep them from picking up stains and finger prints by either sealing them with a varnish, wood sealer, a clear paste wax for wood, or a wax varnish.
A paste wax in clear or neutral gives a nice finish to the bare wood on the sides of a cradled panel. A clear is truly clear and a neutral gives a warm yellow finish. Apply to the sides of the panel with a clean cloth or wire wool and buff after 20 minutes when it is dry. If you are concerned about getting wax on the canvas on the front you may wish to mask off the front with some tape.
Further Reading
Choosing the Right Canvas for Your Painting
The Right Canvas: Choosing Stretcher Bars, Canvas and Priming
Don’t Be a Square – Preparing Circular Painting Panels
Removing Dents in Stretched Canvas
Canvas at Jackson’s Art
Would you have any advice on the
possibility of adhering canvas onto
Aluminum panels. These panels seem to
be becoming popular and they do appear
to hold a few advantages over traditional
wood supports. Many thanks. Robbie.
Hi Robbie
Adhering canvas to an aluminium panel would make a very stable, rigid surface. Our panels are not cradled, so you need to add a cradle or frame them in a tray frame or similar.
In this article on the aluminium panels you can see that pva adheres wood to the aluminium very well, so canvas would not be a problem. The key is to have it under pressure. So an even spread of heavy weights or a strong board with lots of spring clamps all the way around.
This post on round panels shows a bit about using a wooden panel as a cradle for a flat panel.
I hope that is helpful.
Hi Julie
I paint in oils on un-stretched canvas from Fredrix canvas pads. I
usually clip them onto an MDF board during painting.
These are convenient for storing and practice but I’m getting more
serious about painting and would like to start selling my work.
Is there a reason loose canvas isn’t used more often if it can be
glued to a rigid board afterwards? Is this a problem for picture
framers?
I’d also like to try painting on linen in the same way. It seems like
linen is more prone to sagging than canvas, but I haven’t seen linen
panels for sale anywhere. Does linen have to be stretched?
Hi Giselle
Loose canvas can be glued to a board after it’s painted but the weight or clamps needed can leave indentation marks in the paint texture. Most painters prepare them before and then it is like painting on canvas clipped to an mdf panel.
Linen is great on boards, it doesn’t have to be stretched. An uncradled board is not able to be hung without a frame because the back is flat, but framers have ways of framing them, either with a frame that has a lip that goes in front all around the edge of the painting like a normal frame, or by using heavy-duty double stick tape in a tray frame.
The linen panels we make are very popular.
Jackson’s Handmade Linen Boards
Hi Julie, how would you go about
attaching an unstretched painting on
canvas onto another piece of canvas to
be stretched. Ie which glue would you
use? Thanks
Hi Vic
I’ve always wondered what Rose Wylie and Frank Bowling use. They both paint to the edge of unstretched canvas and then they mount that on canvas that is stretched over bars, so that their painting goes to the edge but not over the side and you can see that it does.
I would use PVA or acrylic soft gel, because I don’t know that there is anything else. Rabbit skin glue isn’t as good. I’d like to know their glue and I’d love to have a peep at the method they use in their studios. Do they stretch the canvas and then laminate the painting on top? Or is the canvas unstretched when it’s laminated on or maybe stapled to a flat surface, somewhat stretched? I assumed the canvas is stretched first and then they laminate the painting on top, otherwise the wet glue will cause shrinking and wrinkles in the unpainted canvas. (If anyone knows, I’d love to know.)
Hi Julie, just to clarify, would it be fine
to adhere unprimed linen to an MDF
board? Would there be any issues
priming it after it is dry? I keep reading
that most people only adhere Pre-primed
canvas to a board. I don’t imagine it
would be an issue as long as it has glued
down with good even pressure. Reason I
am asking is that I want to try clear
priming on natural linen before applying
oil paint to keep the raw linen look in the
background. Thanks for your great
instruction and photos on this page!
Hi Mae
The only problem I can see is that canvas shrinks when you wet it with primer. The shrinking is enough that the tension of an overly taut canvas can cause stretcher bars to be pulled out of shape, so it will probably warp a sheet of MDF. You could use clear gesso on a piece of linen and then mount it after it has dried. I know lots of artists that staple canvas to the wall to prime and to paint and when the painting is finished they then stretch it on bars. So you could try something like that. Just try both ways and see which works best. Remember that the shrinkage of the canvas means that you will need to start with a larger piece of canvas than you need for the MDF.
Hi Julie,
Is the glue necessary or would the same result be achieved by
stapling the canvas around the back of the panel the way you
would with stretcher bars?
Hi Steve
Stretching on a panel like on bars would be a great way to do it, too. I know of a couple of people who do that.
I’m not sure why it’s not more popular. Perhaps because canvas can be removed from stretcher bars to store or ship, but if you are using a rigid surface it might be because you are using something that can’t be flexed at all like genuine gesso, very thick oil paint, gold leaf, etc. so you don’t want to remove it for storage. Or maybe because you use a lot less canvas on small panels if you don’t have to pull it around to the back, so it’s a good way to use up small offcuts. I’m also wondering about the back of a panel – the material of the cradle seems much softer than stretcher bars, so maybe it will get quite torn up with repeated stapling. Or maybe some panels will not be able to take the tension and would warp – but since it won’t sag, you probably don’t need as much tension as you do with bars.
And of course, uncradled panels are too thin for staples – and a lot of people use flat panels for plein air painting.
If you do some canvas panels by stretching, please come back and let me know if you found any drawbacks.
I know someone that stretches canvas on a large panel to paint because he doesn’t like the bounce of traditional stretched canvas, then re-stretches the finished painting onto bars to exhibit, because it is so much lighter to handle.
Hi Julie,
I’ve never worked on canvas before and the only reason I’m inquiring about what canvas to use is because I would like to work larger than the 60mm x 60mm MDF board I use. I build up layers over months and sand back, so any canvas would need tto be strong. I worry about having to stretch it after painting, or before? Can you paint on canvas that doesn’t need stretching? Sorry but I haven’t a clue.
Hi Aileen
If you like your panel but want it larger, there are much larger panels. You don’t need canvas on the panel if it doesn’t work with your method.
We do painting panels up to 122x122cm (48×48 inches). Because panels can start flexing when they get big these panels have a structure on the back to keep them from warping, called cradling.
If the problem with a larger panel is weight then you might want to use a stretched canvas which is lighter. But it sounds like your process requires a rigid surface, rather than a slack bouncy one. As you mention, you could work on canvas and then stretch it afterwards. You could staple it to a temporary panel or the wall, work on it and then remove it and stretch it over canvas stretcher bars.
A heavy cotton or linen canvas will withstand some sanding, it depends on what you are doing.
I hope that’s of some help.
These are good larger panels that come in two depths of bracing.
JACKSON’S SMOOTH WOODEN PANELS
Hi
Thanks for the insightful article. Can I
use an acrylic primer to adhere the
canvas to a board? And will any acrylic
gloss medium work as an adhesive?
Hi.
I don’t think primer would stick as well as an acrylic gel or PVA because of the chalk content.
A good adhesive is an acrylic gel that is a little softer than heavy body acrylic paint or up to the same thickness as heavy body paint. Acrylic Soft Gel is the most recommended because it is very sticky, and is the right thickness to spread well, but not be too thin.
do you think this technique would work for an already painted canvas? I have paintings removed from stretches so I can store them easily and have been wondering about mounting on board rather than restretching them. I have hesitated as I have seen mounted works on paper suffer from adhesives bubbling paper over years
Hi Charlene
I think it would work if you had enough glue behind to ensure good contact all over and if you clamped or weighted it very well. But my bigger concern would be that it might crush the paint. If the paint doesn’t have much raised area it might be fine.
I would advise trying it once with a less important painting first. When you unclamp it check if the paint surface suffered from the compression. If not then you can go ahead and do more.
Another thing to consider is matching the size of the canvas to the board and allowing enough to trim off and allow for any shrinkage that sometimes happens when the canvas gets wet from the glue. You might need to allow for some slight cropping if you choose a board a few mm smaller than the painting and then trim off any that doesn’t shrink up. If you don’t want that you will need to experiment with getting just the right size board and painting combination. But after you do 2 or 3 you should be able to predict how your materials are responding and plan for that.
If you go ahead I’d love to hear back about how things went, if you have a moment to come back.