How the Ground Changed My Art

When I learned to observe and simplify, my portraits became more interesting. And, strangely, more real than ever.

But today I want to talk about something different. Something nobody ever told me when I started: the surface.

The surface

When you start painting, you go to an art shop and buy brushes, paint and canvas. But do you actually know which canvas to buy? Or which panel?

Most beginners don't. They just start somewhere. Then they spend years struggling with paintings that turn dull overnight, never quite come to life, or feel flat no matter how many layers, days or weeks they put in.

Often, it is not your fault. It is the support you are painting on, even if you bought it in a professional art shop.

The surface affects everything: how the paint sits, how the brush responds, whether it bounces or digs in, and whether the colour stays vibrant or sinks and goes ghostly.

Hard surfaces, no bounce

I love painting on hard surfaces, with minimal bounce. I want to see the paint physically sitting there, thick and present, not absorbed and dulled.

When you use artist-grade oil paint, especially something creamy and rich, the last thing you want is for it to disappear into a thin, factory-primed canvas. I use Michael Harding paint, and I tell you, it would make me crazy to see that gorgeous paint disappear.

For years, I ruined paintings. I wanted impasto and got dull patches. I wanted luminosity and got chalky surfaces. My portraits felt like they were evaporating.

So I started layering my supports: gesso, powder, acrylic paste, more gesso, more texture. More recently, non-absorbent primer.

Some grounds cracked, some reacted in ways I did not expect, and some ruined my work. But some made my eyes light up.

The surface became part of the painting, together with the subject. The portraits stopped disappearing. The paint stayed where I put it, the colour stayed pure, and the physical quality of the paint remained.

I never went back to simple, ready-primed canvas. Only after building up many layers do I feel ready to start a painting.

What I use now

The best ground for me is a panel. After that, linen mounted on a panel, canvas mounted on a panel, or even paper mounted on a panel. Essentially, any solid surface with minimal bounce that can resist scraping and layering.

I would almost consider painting on concrete if it were easy to make, but it is not practical. Instead, I apply many layers of gesso, followed by modelling paste or any heavy-body acrylic, and I add anything I have at hand to create texture. You never know what will happen.

One day, one of my palettes fell face down onto a freshly gessoed panel. When I lifted it, I found the most amazing relief patterns. So I stopped using stencils, and I started pressing any flat, hard surface into fresh layers, hoping for the magic.

The trick is to continue until it happens. Sometimes it takes days. Sometimes it is a lucky fall.

Get your hands dirty, switch your music on, and flow.

Try this

If you have never done this, paint the same subject on two different surfaces:

• a basic, ready-primed canvas
• a heavily gessoed panel, or any surface you have prepared yourself

Then compare how the brush moves, how the colour behaves and how the painting develops. You might discover that what you thought was a technique problem was really a surface problem.

Why it matters

Learning to see changes your perception. Changing the surface shapes your practice, and I would even say your style.

Technique matters. References and models matter. Observation matters. But the starting conditions matter just as much.

Nobody told me this when I started, so I am telling you.