You should prime an unprepared canvas before painting it with acrylic paint. This blog answers common questions about priming and prepping for acrylic paint to help you create like a pro.
Most store-bought canvasses come with a layer of gesso, so they’re universally prepared for various types of paint. These primed canvasses are a great surface to work on with acrylic paint.
A canvas that is specially prepared for oil paint is usually prepared using an oil-based primer. This results in an oily layer on top, which is unsuitable for acrylic paint.
Stretching your own canvas
If you’ve bought an unstretched canvas, make sure to properly stretch and attach the fabric to the frame before adding any primer. After that, you can apply acrylic binder and gesso.
Since canvasses are usually made from natural materials, the tension of your canvas can be influenced by the weather, humidity, temperature, manner of transportation and the way it’s packaged.
Primers you need
To prime your canvas, you need two things: an acrylic binder and gesso. Acrylic binder closes the structure of the canvas to prevent gesso and paint from seeping through. Gesso will provide you with an absorbent surface after drying, which makes it the perfect base for acrylic paint.
Start by adding a thin layer of acrylic binder using a spalter brush. Once this layer has dried completely, you can add one to three thin layers of gesso. Gesso can be thinned using a small amount of water. To add color to your background, you can add a small amount of acrylic paint.
Remove any irregularities in your gesso layers by lightly sanding the surface once it has dried completely.
Add texture to your background
If you want to work on a more textured background, Amsterdam offers a great solution: modeling paste! With Amsterdam modeling paste, you can make relief backgrounds that are suitable to work on with acrylic paints. The modeling paste can be used by itself or in combination with Amsterdam acrylic colors. You can mix the colors with the modeling paste in any ratio. Do note, however, that the paste is pigmented with Titanium White, so your color will turn out lighter!
