How I prepare Masonite® panels
Photo of my workshop where I prepare painting surfaces. NFS
A lot of people have asked if I prepare my own Masonite panels or purchase them. The answer is I prepare them myself. I have a small workshop squeezed into an “L” shaped corner of my garage with all the necessary tools to cut and fabricate anything I need to prepare almost any size board or canvas. It’s a very compact space but with enough room to easily cut and prepare small boards. I use 100% acrylic gesso with as many as 5 sanded coats to prepare the panels. If I need to work on cutting larger shapes the table saw and ancient radial arm saw are on wheels so I can roll them out into the larger garage area to cut and put together large sizes as needed. I really do keep my car in there during cold Michigan winters. I’ve actually prepared 6 ft x 14 ft surfaces for murals as large as 40 feet long in this way. Recently I’ve been doing mostly smaller sized paintings but have worked on a variety of sizes for shows and commissions as well.
My novel way of preparing small paintings for shipment is to glue a 1/2-inch strip around the edge so it is a bit like a stretched canvas. The edge is painted off-white. This way the work can be hung like an unframed canvas although many of my collectors seem to eventually have them professionally framed. It's more work but that's the way I like to do it.
You can see a sample of this on my blog on the May 1, 2007 posting. Just click HERE then scroll down to the Tuesday, May 01, 2007 posting.
© Copyright by Paul Wolber
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