Grounds
The ground or primer is the layer used to prepare a support for painting. The color and tone of the ground can affect the color and tonal values of the paint layers applied over it. The ground for flexible supports, such as stretched canvas, is often different from primers applied to rigid supports, such as wood panels.
Master the use of Rabbit Skin Glue for canvas, wood panels, and distemper paint. Achieve professional, archival painting results with this traditional material.
Master oil ground application for superior painting surfaces. Learn expert techniques using Rublev Colours grounds. Ideal for rigid and flexible supports.
Discover the crucial role of adhesion testing for ACM panels, why primers are essential, and how artists can ensure the longevity of their artwork through DIY tests and tested materials.
Explore Rembrandt's painting grounds, from panel to canvas, uncovering historical recipes, materials, and techniques for mastering art.
Explore effective strategies to prevent canvas degradation. Learn how material choices and environmental controls can protect your art. This is essential reading for every artist.
Emulsion grounds typically consist of an emulsifying adhesive, such as animal collagen glue and vegetable oil with chalk and lead white. There are many formulas for emulsion grounds, also called "half-chalk grounds," but the one herein we've tried and found that it works quite well if you follow the instructions carefully. This formula and its preparation is based on the Full Oil Ground described in Egg Tempera Painting, Tempera Underpainting, Oil Emulsion Painting.
Learn how to prepare and apply gesso for wood panels with detailed instructions on priming, applying fabric cover, and polishing for a perfect finish. Discover the best techniques here.
A comparison of grounds for egg tempera by artist, Koo Schadler. She compares seven different grounds based on six criteria she developed for egg tempera painting. Read this article to see how they measure up.
Tempera is a method of painting with pigments dispersed in a binder that is miscible with water such as egg yolk, casein, gum, or hide glue. This article examines the type of supports used today for tempera and the best practice of preparing them for tempera paint using a new ground, Tempera Ground, made by Natural Pigments.
Oil paint darkens and becomes increasingly translucent as it ages. These changes may cause visible disfigurement of paintings, and although the phenomenon has been extensively studied, the causes are not definitely known at present. This article presents evidence that demonstrates how improper technique and materials in the ground layer can lead to ruined paintings.
Learning from artists' manuscripts, a contemporary artist adapts a 15th-century recipe for preparing grounds for oil painting on wood panels. In her book, The Art of Arts, Anita Albus discusses materials and practices of oil and tempera painting that have either been lost or fallen into disuse. Albus makes a poignant observation that ever since the industrial revolution, it has been an industry that dictates what materials are available to artists. Gesso production falls into this category alongside the preparation of paints and mediums. Artists have succumbed to the materials handed to us. She reminds us that before industrialization and typical of the European artist's guilds of the 15th and 16th centuries, it was largely the artists who prepared their own formulas and concoctions in painting.
Welcome to Natural Pigments' Glossary of common and not so common Paint and Art Terms. Here we hope to give you a brief definition of various art terms which might be unfamiliar. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas, please contact us.
