Hey all,
Can I just say that I LOVE where this thread's been going. As I mentioned to Chris in an email just now, this pretty much confirms that he made the right choice for his painting. Clearly Bautista's actions last October really left a bad impression with the Rangers. And I'm not in a position to say whether what happened then or with Odor's punch is 'good for the game', but it makes the story of Chris' painting more and more compelling, in my eyes.
So, with that in mind, I'm happy to say that I received the stretcher bars for the linen last week. As I probably mentioned in previous threads, I use a heavy duty kind of bar, so there's less of an issue with warping. At the same time, it makes the painting feel a little bit more substantial to me. Unfortunately, like an idiot, I forgot to take a photo of the bars before construction. Doy!
After the linen was properly stretched and secured, I primed it with matte medium. The reason for doing so is to create a barrier between the primer the paint sits on and the linen itself. Over time, without such a thing, the oil paints will rot the linen. Granted, it probably wouldn't happen in our lifetime, but still.
Here's the canvas after the matte mediuming (Is that a word?):
If any of you have ever heard of rabbit skin glue, matte medium is a water-based equivalent. The former is used moreso with oil primer, a ground that I don't really love painting on. Acrylic gesso is more my speed. For what it's worth, it's a little less archival, but the difference in that become secondary to the kind of surface I want to paint on.
After the matte medium dries, it gets two coats of gesso:
Now, the next step is to sand it down a little bit to get rid of any unwanted texture. And from there, it's onto the drawing!
It's probably worth noting that one can easily walk into an art supply store and buy a pre-made, pre-stretched canvas. And there's nothing wrong with doing so. Actually, the quality of some of them is REALLY good. But I just like doing it all myself - it's a weird sense of accomplishment to build these things from the ground-up, I suppose.
Anywho, if any of you have questions or comments about these steps, feel free to chime in. Or, if you want to continue chatting about anything related to Bautista, the bat flip, the punch, whatever, go for it!
Stay tuned...
Graig