Hi my name is Amanda and I am an oil painter. I absolutely love using wood panels as my surface to paint on. I much prefer them over canvas because they are much smoother. And I might be wrong but it feels like they require less paint to cover than canvas. Like whenever I use canvas it feels like the canvas fibers are just soaking up all the paint. But wood panels often come as just raw wood so you need to prep them before painting. In this video I am going to take you through my process of prepping my panels for oil painting. So let's get into it!
Ok so the first thing I do is unwrap all the panels. The panels I like to use are from Blick and they are the studio wood panels. You can just order these online. The primer I use is liquatex’s Gesso. I got this big bucket from michael’s because I go through so much of it when I prime panels.
When I paint the gesso on I like to use a foam brush just to help minimize brush strokes. I paint the top and sides of each panel. Then I set it aside to dry for about 10 minutes. When I prep panels I do it in large batches just to be more efficient. You want to do at least 3 layers of gesso. So now there is two ways you can do this. You could lightly sand between each layer or you could do all three layers and then sand. I have done both options and I think I like doing all three layers and then sanding because it feels like it saves time and the results are pretty much the same.
I like to wear a mask while sanding just because sanding gesso makes a lot of really fine dust. I also like to do it in the garage because of this as well. For sanding I start with 320P then finish with 400P so that it is super smooth. I do this on the top and sides. Then I wipe off the dust on a towel and move on to the next panel.
This last step I do is kinda optional. I like to do one last layer in acrylic paint. I personally like to make this layer a bright and fun color because my art is bright as well. The paints I use for this are Liquatex’s heavy body acrylic paint. I just mix up some colors on my palette and then paint it on using a foam brush again.
Also Lastly Between the gesso layers and this last acrylic layer I made use to wipe off any excess paint that might be on the back of the panel just so that it looks neater. Once done these panels will be ready to use in 24 hours just so that the gesso and acrylic paint has time to fully cure.
When I use these 6x6 panels for oil painting I like to leave the edges as that bright acrylic paint because it is just fun and kind of acts like a frame!
So that is it! I hope you found this video helpful and thanks so much for watching. I will see you again later!
https://youtu.be/ezOt5gV33c0?si=a3m7NbZGYgvMKeZp