Notes From the Paint Table: I Painted on Museum Board So You Don’t Have To

I have been searching for the perfect surface for my hand-painted mobiles.

“Perfect,” apparently, is asking a lot.

I need a material that is archival, stiff enough to become a component in a kinetic sculpture, light enough to move freely, capable of being die cut, and—because I actually have to spend hours painting the stuff—pleasant to paint on.

Oh, and I would really prefer that it not curl itself into a potato chip when it gets wet.

My longtime solution has been to laminate 3 sheets of 140 lb watercolor paper, but lately I’ve been experimenting with other substrates and thickness. That search has included polyester nonwovens such as Evolon and Reemay, very heavy watercolor papers (200lb and 400lb), art board, mounting board and rag mat board.

Goal, find one substrate that is reasonably priced (400 lb arches watercolor paper at 22 x 30" per sheet is over $38 so its not within my price range), archival and allows me to paint both sides.  

Today I decided to stop reading specifications and just paint on the things.

First Up: Strathmore 2-Ply Museum Mounting Board

This one surprised me. Measures 32 x 40 inches and comes in at $16.33 per sheet

I started with fluid acrylic gouache and a damp brush—not the ridiculously wet applications I’ve been playing with lately. The paint moved beautifully across the surface. It took opaque passages, transparent passages, dry brushing and repeated layers without complaint.  This was not painting to create something frameable.  It was pure exploration and a hot mess!

More importantly, it was simply a pleasure to paint on.

That matters.

I’m not looking for a substrate that merely survives being painted. I want one that responds well enough that I forget about the material and start playing with the paint.

So naturally, once I discovered that I liked it, I tried to destroy it.

I added considerably more water and scrubbed one area repeatedly while it was wet. It took quite a while before the surface began to show any degradation.

   

And even then, something interesting happened.

Instead of immediately pilling and separating the way many cellulose papers do when they're overworked, the disturbed area developed a mottled, almost granulating texture. I could see that I had altered the surface, but it remained usable—and, frankly, I liked the effect.

The Strathmore Museum Mounting Board is made from 100% cotton fiber, which suddenly made its behavior much less mysterious.

As the painted sheet dried, there was some lifting at the corners and a very slight overall curl. But there was none of the localized hills-and-valleys cockling I normally associate with heavily wetted watercolor paper.  I would consider 2 play board to be the equivalent of 200 lb watercolor paper.  

Considering how much water I had thrown at one side of a thin 2-ply board, that was impressive.

For my purposes, I would use two painted pieces laminated back-to-back. I normally paint a sheet, cut it in half, glue the painted halves to a blank sheet and put it in a paper press, and then die cut or hand cut my mobile components from the finished laminate.

So a slight broad curl before lamination isn't particularly concerning.

The Strathmore is definitely still in the running.

Then Came Crescent 2-Ply RagMat

Next victim. 32 x 40" 2 ply  $15 per sheet

The Crescent immediately felt different.

The paint seemed to remain closer to the surface instead of sinking into it. Wet passages moved beautifully, and I was able to get some lovely translucent effects.

Then I scrubbed it while wet.

Nope.

   

The surface began producing little bits of fuzz much sooner than the Strathmore.

At first I thought I had found my elimination round. Then I wiped the loosened fibers away and kept painting.

And it was fine.

As long as I treated it like a painting surface instead of trying to scrub a hole through it, it behaved very nicely.

Even stranger, I discovered that I could lift a little of the acrylic after it had dried. The surface appears to hold the paint differently from the Strathmore, and I want to explore that more.

So Crescent 2-ply RagMat didn't fail.

It simply informed me that it would appreciate it if I stopped attacking it with a wet brush.

Fair enough.

Canson Art Board Reenters the Competition

I had already painted another contender: Canson Art Board.

This board presented a different problem originally because the reverse carried the Canson branding. I covered the back with gesso and then painted both sides.

And it was lovely.

 

The Canson took broad opaque acrylic passages, dry brush, layering and normal wet painting beautifully. Most importantly, after painting both sides I had essentially no warping or cockling.

That's significant because the Canson may not require lamination at all.

If the board has enough stiffness for the size of the components I'm making, the workflow becomes wonderfully simple:

Paint side one.
Paint side two.
Die cut.
Build the mobile.

No gluing. No matching halves. No time in the press.

That makes it a very serious contender even though I haven't subjected it to the same ridiculous wet-scrubbing torture test.

And perhaps I don't need to.

There is a difference between discovering the limits of a material and demanding that every material survive abuse that isn't part of the normal process.

Finally: Crescent 9505 4-Ply

Because apparently I hadn't abused enough art supplies for one evening, I pulled out a sheet of Crescent 9505 4-ply board.

Another surprise.

It was also genuinely enjoyable to paint.

The surface accepted everything from broad opaque passages to thinner washes and dry-brush marks. Eventually I went after one wet area fairly aggressively with a brush.

Yes, I could make the surface pull up.

 

But again, I wiped away the loosened fibers, added fresh paint with a damp brush, and continued without much trouble.

That tells me more than simply knowing whether a material can be damaged.

Of course it can be damaged. Give me enough water and determination and I'll probably find a way.

What interests me is whether the surface failure becomes catastrophic.

In this case, it didn't.

And because the 9505 is already 4-ply, it presents the same intriguing possibility as the Canson Art Board: paint both sides and die cut the board directly without laminating two separate painted surfaces.

Now I need to see how it behaves after it dries completely.

So Which One Won?

Annoyingly, none of them.

I was hoping to eliminate materials.

Instead, I found several different possibilities.

The Strathmore 2-ply Museum Mounting Board was probably the biggest surprise. It was wonderful to paint, tolerated an extraordinary amount of wet scrubbing, and showed very little dimensional distortion considering what I did to it. Laminating two painted 2-ply pieces could produce an excellent finished material.

The Crescent 2-ply RagMat doesn't tolerate aggressive wet scrubbing nearly as well, but under normal painting conditions it is lovely. Paint seems to remain closer to the surface, and its ability to be lifted and reworked deserves more experimentation.

The Canson Art Board has the tremendous advantage of working as a single double-sided painted board. It stayed flat, painted beautifully and may be ready to go directly from the paint table to the die cutter.

And the Crescent 9505 4-ply may offer that same streamlined construction while providing another very enjoyable acrylic painting surface.

There are still tests to do.

I need to let everything dry completely. I need to compare final curl and stiffness. I need to flex the heavily painted areas and make sure the paint remains securely bonded. Most importantly, I need to laminate the Strathmore 2-ply, die cut all of these materials, and see how the finished components actually behave when suspended from a mobile.

Because that's the real test.

These sheets don't need to become successful paintings.

In fact, most of them look like absolute chaos.

I push color around. I paint over things. I make marks, wipe things away, add more paint, change direction and generally create a large sheet full of unrelated visual events.

Then I cut it apart.

And suddenly a small fragment of turquoise and yellow isn't competing with twenty other colors. It's floating in space. A violent red brushstroke becomes one side of a moving shape. A quiet lavender passage appears for a moment as the component turns, then disappears again.

The air supplies the negative space that doesn't exist on the original painted sheet.

That's when the mess becomes interesting.

So perhaps I wasn't really testing paper today.

I was testing possibilities.

And, inconveniently, I found several.