Oil-Primed Linen Makes a Comeback

The popularity of oil-primed linen has waxed and waned throughout history. In the days of wooden panels, it was used primarily for studies, rather than for finished paintings. Later the humidity and exasperating temperature fluctuations of Venice inspired a newfound interest in oil-primed linen because it was less susceptible to cracking than were wooden panels. In the early 1800s, linen's popularity rose even further. It was lightweight, it could be rolled for transport, it was easily stretched, and it could be glued onto wooden panels. Industrial and mechanical developments, however, eventually allowed for the creation of inexpensive cotton canvas. Artists inevitably gravitated to the cheaper fabric, and linen quickly fell out of vogue.

Today linen is making a proud comeback, as increasing numbers of fine artists are willing to pay more for the time-tested assurance of an oil-primed support. In response to increasing demand, a wide range of oil-primed linens, in both unstretched and stretched varieties, has become available. Noteworthy on the scene are ready-to-use oil-primed linen panels and boards, which are available from a number of manufacturers in a wide range of sizes and weights.

Stretching Preprimed Linen
Kristine Diehl, of Plymouth, Minnesota, chose linen early in her career because she wanted a smooth surface for the fine detail in her portraits. "I was working on cotton canvas but didn't like its roughness and imperfections," she says. "I tried to get a smoother surface by trowelling on Winsor & Newton Foundation White with a palette knife, but this left lines from the knife. In order to get it perfectly smooth I had to sand it. My instructor at the time told me that the white contained lead, and that I was making the lead airborne by my sanding, so I started looking for a new painting surface."

Diehl obtained numerous samples and tried them out. She settled first on Claessens oil-primed Belgian linen, but eventually switched to the Artfix X-Fine Detail oil-primed linen she now uses exclusively. "I prefer working on primed linen because if I were to prime it, I might make a mistake," she says. "I figure I can let the experts who spend all their waking hours working in this field do the priming. That way I can stand behind my materials when I sell my paintings. I also like the oil-primed linen because acrylic primers have not been around long, and I don't know what will happen to them in 100 years. What happens if the acrylic remains flexible and the oil paint gets more brittle? Therefore I trust the oil primer on linen, because it is time-tested." Diehl notes the one drawback of linen is its price, a fact she is quickly reminded of each time she purchases her usual large bolt (85" x 51/2 yards). "I'm always shocked at how much it costs," she admits, "but I justify it by reminding myself that the cost gets spread out over many paintings."

Diehl uses stretchers from Upper Canada Stretchers to prepare her painting support. "They have a variety of grades," she says, "and I choose the one that will be strong enough to support the size of the canvas I'm working on." Diehl finds that preprimed linen takes more muscle to stretch than unprimed linen, although canvas pliers can make the job easier. To hold the linen in place, she favors copper tacks, which she considers to be more archivally sound than staples.

Diehl tries to avoid wrinkling or folding her preprimed linen from the moment of purchase. On the other hand, she has watched some of her students try to stretch severely crumpled preprimed linen. "It was nearly impossible for them to pull the wrinkles out," she says. "They tried applying warm water to the back of the linen, a trick that often works well with dings on the back of a canvas, but that was unsuccessful in this case. Students might not worry about wrinkles occurring in an unimportant area of their paintings, but my goal as a teacher is also to help them see what doesn't work."

When stretching her linen, Diehl pulls the fabric tight with canvas pliers. Holding the pliers in her right hand, she exerts a strong pull on the linen while pressing a tack into the fabric with her left hand and hammering it in. "It's more important for me to make sure the linen is tight than to make sure the tack is perfectly straight," she emphasizes. "And having only two hands means I have to choose." An art conservator advised her to protect the reverse side of her paintings by applying Fome-Cor. Accordingly, she cuts the Fome-Cor an inch smaller than the dimensions of the painting and screws it into the back of the stretcher using brass screws and washers. This, she says, prevents dings as well as dirt and dust from getting to the back of the painting.

Stretching Unprimed Linen and Making Linen Panels
Ocean Quigley, of Oakland, California, knew he wanted to paint in the style of the Old Masters. He went to art school desiring to render the illusion of light and form and to give his compositions a solid sense of space. Although he wanted his landscapes to capture the engulfing space and the saturation of local light, he quickly discovered that the art schools he was attending had different goals. "During the late 1980s, abstract paintings were in vogue," Quigley remembers. "Landscapes were perceived as marginal subjects and Old Master techniques weren't taught. I jumped from school to school and finally decided to learn how to prepare grounds and colors by myself. I sought painting masters, including Gil Bruvel and Richard Nelson, and they taught me techniques, such as how to paint fat over lean."

Quigley began by painting on acrylic-primed canvas, but he found the surface unresponsive to his oils. He bought some linen and immediately recognized the difference. "I can't imagine going back," he says. "Once I got used to the linen, I saw working on cotton as a miserable experience. Gessoed cotton, for instance, is quite thirsty. If I apply a loaded brush to the canvas, the oil and solvent will be absorbed and the brush will stick. It doesn't let the brush glide across the surface. In addition, the absorbent quality of canvas sucks out the oil or solvent, making the oil paint look chalky."

In Quigley's opinion, oil paint is the best surface for painting with oils, and he finds that oil-primed linen is the closest thing to painting directly on an existing layer of oil paint. "It has a tooth I like and it's stiffer than the spongy surface of canvas," he says. "The main thing I like is the response of the surface to the brushstroke. Linen really lets the brush move. And finally there is the archival issue. Cotton canvas is a relative newcomer to the scene. On the other hand, artists have painted on linen for more than 500 years. Cotton is woven from tiny strands that can't compare to the strength found in the much longer linen fibers. I trust linen for its longevity. As you can see, I evangelize to all my friends about the benefits of working with oil on linen."

Quigley prepares two types of linen surfaces: stretched linen for larger works and linen glued to a panel for smaller works. He prefers the medium tooth found on Utrecht's 79D linen, which he describes as "a sweet spot for the price." For the stretched linen, Quigley first washes the fabric (without soap) in a washing machine. "Gil Bruvel, who studied at The Louvre Conservatory School, taught me this technique," he says. "Today's linen is often starched (historically it was not) and starched linen is harder to stretch than unstarched linen. I also believe the starch might be a potential ground for mold. Washing the starch out and air drying the linen before stretching it allows me to stretch it by hand without canvas pliers."

Like canvas, the linen must be separated (with a barrier) from the acid found in oil paints. Accordingly, Quigley works two coats of Gamblin Poly Vinyl Acetate (PVA) Size into the weave with a stiff house-painting brush, allowing the surface to dry between coats. "As it dries, the surface becomes as tight as a drum, loosening only a little once it is fully dry," he says. "Next I prime the surface with two coats of Gamblin Oil Painting Ground, allowing about two weeks of drying time between coats. I used to use a lead white, but now that I have kids I have migrated to less-toxic materials in the studio." The artist typically does not sand during the process because he prefers the tooth of the linen.

When applying his linen to board panels, Quigley does not wash the fabric because the stiffness helps him to glue the linen flat. He first buys 1/4" birch ply and has it cut into 18"-x-24" or 16"-x-20" panels. He then trims the linen to overlap the edges of each panel by half an inch. "I'll do a quick sanding of the smooth side and then apply white Elmer's glue with a spatula over the front surface of the wood," he says. "Next, I lay the linen down and take a second spatula and press the linen into the glue, flattening out the bubbles as I go. I'm not expecting the linen to be glued for all eternity, but rather to adhere in such a way that it can be removed by a conservator in the future if required." Once the glue is dry, Quigley follows the same steps of applying rabbitskin glue and two coats of oil-based primer that he uses on the stretched linen. Finally, he trims the excess linen so the edges of the linen match the edges of the panels. "I often construct linen panels in an assembly-line process in order to make a huge set of them in an afternoon," the artist says. "They're relatively inexpensive to make and they're great for plein air painting and quick studies before a model." Besides, Quigley says, having a large number of paint-ready surfaces available is "like having 40 pieces of paper lying around. The sheer number of available surfaces causes me to lose my apprehension of starting a piece. It's a great way to overcome artist's block."

Christopher Willard is a painter, color theorist, and freelance writer who has contributed to American Artist and its quarterlies for more than seven years.

Fredrix Oil-Primed Linen

In response to the resurgence of interest in oil-primed canvas, Fredrix has revived the traditional method of preparing Belgian linen by hand using techniques that are centuries old. First, each canvas is stretched on a large, specially designed frame and is carefully examined to eliminate any irregularities. Next, every square inch of the canvas is smoothed with a volcanic pumice stone. Warm animal-hide glue is then applied with long stainless-steel spatulas to seal the linen. As the glue cools, the linen tightens. Then it is pumiced smooth again and a fine preparation of old-world lead white?made from a mixture of lead whiting and linseed oil?is applied to yield a smooth, receptive surface. The panels resulting from the careful process are available through Fredrix's line of archival boards. For more information, visit www.fredrixartistcanvas.com.



Flax to Canvas
Linen is made from the fibers of the flax plant, the same plant whose seeds are crushed for linseed oil. The fibers are separated from the woody pulp and are then passed through rollers and spun into long strands. These are woven into the linen used for artists' canvas. Historically, Belgian linen was valued because Belgium's climate is perfect for the growing and decomposition of flax. Flax is typically left in the fields to decompose in a process called retting that helps break down the bond between the woody and fibrous portions of the plant. Today linen is grown worldwide, with about 90 percent of the fabric produced in Russia.

Linen for Artists
Linen is recognizable by its color; unprimed linen is a light grayish brown or umber color. The number of threads per inch, on the other hand, determines the linen's texture. Extremely smooth portrait linen will have about 127 threads per inch, whereas a medium-textured fabric will have around 70. Double-weave linen is often used for very large paintings because of its strength and density.

Linen often has the appearance of being homespun, with an irregular quality and small raised bumps called "nubs." Many artists enjoy the variety and depth these irregularities give to their work, which they feel they cannot obtain with the more mechanical weave of other canvases. The fibers used to make linen are longer and rounder than those used to make canvas. Because of this many artists claim the weave of linen provides greater strength and stability across the face of the painting. Indeed, it expands and contracts less than canvas, thus preventing the cracking of the paint over time.

The boards upon which linen is glued vary widely from company to company and include birch, Masonite, Gatorboard, and even aluminum composites. Likewise, the type of linen that can be applied to such panels also varies. Some companies offer custom sizes and will attach a latticed support (called a cradle) to the reverse of the panel to help prevent warping. Artists will want to examine products carefully to see what best suits their needs. Those with more exacting temperaments will want to check that the weave of the linen is lined up with the edges of their panels. As with any painting surface, an oil-based primer should be used with oil paints. Acrylic painters should look for acrylic-primed supports.

About the Artists

Kristine Diehl obtained a B.A. in art history and German linguistics before studying with painters Cyd Wicker and Dale Redpath at The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Art, in Minneapolis, where she currently teaches. Her works have won awards in juried competitions, including at The 2003 Art Renewal Center International Salon. In 2004 Diehl was one of 11 young artists invited by American Artist and FORBES, Inc. to spend 10 days painting in London. [See American Artist, "The Next Generation of Realists," (January 2005)]. Diehl is represented by Artiques Art and Antiques, in Snow Hill, Maryland (www.artiquescollection.com). See more of her work at www.kdiehl.com.

Ocean Quigley comes from a family of artists. His mother, Alexis America, is an illustrator in Maui, and his father, Jack Sinclair, is a painter living in Santa Fe. Quigley describes himself as a serial art-school dropout, having attended Parsons The New School for Design, in New York City; Tyler School of Art at Temple University, in Philadelphia; and California College of the Arts, in Oakland. In 1991 Quigley moved to California and set his artistic sights on the atmospheric light of the Bay Area landscape. Quigley's work has been included in national shows and exhibited at the Barbican Gallery, in London. Art of California magazine awarded him medals two years in a row, and in 2000 Quigley was a finalist in Arts for the Parks. When not painting, Quigley is the senior art director for Electronic Arts, which produces the "Sims" computer games. See more of his work at www.oceanquigley.com.