Have you ever made your canvas from sizing and priming with gesso when using canvas as a support? You might usually buy a canvas at stores that is already primed, but after this workshop, you will surely be more interested in the “ground” of the canvas.

Canvas is mainly used as a support for oil paintings and acrylic paintings. In this workshop, we will be making the “semi-absorbent canvas” for oil-based mediums. This support utilizes the advantages of each ground; the water absorbability of water-based ground and the flexibility of oil-based ground.

In Japanese, there is an idiom “oil and water”, which describes something that are not blended with each other or are unable to interact or coexist easily as oil and water. However, surface-active agents will bond these two incompatible components.(Please check out the article about medium by chief Iwaizumi for more details.https://pigment.tokyo/en/blogs/article/5)

In the European method, they use Bologna gesso, animal glue, sun-thickened linseed oil (or stand oil) and “egg” as a surfactant for a semi-absorbent canvas. The egg will disperse the oil in the water, and becomes emulsified just like mayonnaise.

Answer to the question of why eggs can bond oil and water together, please take a look at this chart.

 

The egg yolk is made up of around 50% of water and 30% of lipids. Since the lipids contain the surfactant, it becomes emulsified. In this workshop, not only you will learn these theories, but we will also teach you how to make a semi-absorbent canvas using the latest techniques. Here is the time for Linseed Oil from HOLBEIN.