Watercolor Painting on Canvas

When I was buying my frames for my exhibit recently I found a product I thought I would never use for watercolors. I was looking for the fredericks canvas that is for painting with watercolor but the store no longer carries them so the sales person suggested using a ground on my own canvas instead.

I thought it would be too messy and too much work but apparently, all you need to do is paint the absorbent ground on the pre-gessoed canvas...hmm, now I am really intrigued. You can also use it on hardboard, wood or other surface to create a porous watercolor paper like surface. You can then display framed under glass or seal the surface afterwards to seal and protect it as you would with any watercolor surface not under glass.

Gesso is like a bridge connecting the support and the paint and the absorbent ground is applied to any gessoed support to mimic the absorbency of watercolor paper. For the full technical information and instructions go to Golden's site Aha just when I think I will not have anything else I 'need' to buy when I go into the art store I find something new I just have to try :)

As a bonus, it can also be used to cover up mistakes on watercolor paper or for negative painting. You can also mix the ground with acrylic paints for a colored ground