Best wood for oil painting? (Or other smooth surface)

I have a painting class coming up and the technique benifits from a very smooth surface.   I was thinking that plywood is usually somewhat affordable.

But then I remembered some of the problems with rotary cut plywood

Is there other plywood options?

I didn't enjoy mdf for prepping and painting, as it warps and the glue smell takes forever to dicapate.

Frugality is also a factor, but wood is expencive here, so I don't know if it's an option.  Hope so.

I think plywood would not be ideal because of all the glue that holds the layers together.
Maybe you can find a wooden cutting board for not too many moneys?
Or do you have a wood shop in your neighbourhood? Or a carpenter. I'd imagine off-cuts wouldn't be too expensive, and you could select a format/proportions that pleases you on the spot.
Good luck with your hunt!

Depending on the size you want for the surface, a home building site might offer some scraps, with permission from the project manager.

My mom did an oil of me at about two yrs old on a piece of wood that was 1 in x 4 in x 4 in.

She also had aspiration of doing a business painting horse head bookend.  She just never finished that project.  She had the horse heads cut by a local woodworking shop.

Someone doing a fixer upper would have lots of wood from the kitchen cabinets.  Most fixer upper pull out beautiful wood cabinets and just dump them.

I don't know about penetration of the paint into the material, but I would think the product called hardwood - which is in the engineered woods family- would work better for this purpose than plywood.

It is pretty cheap, easy to move, easy to cut without power tools, thin, durable and widely available.

Think of an old time clip board or a peg board for hanging tools. Those are both made of hardwood.

A lot of lumber yards will have off sized cuts of it for sale at a discount, you could also scavenge it from cheap old furniture.

I'm making a piece of furniture with sliding doors, mid century style. Classic usage for hardboard. I paid ten dollars for two off sized quarter sheets of it.

I have also seen a lot of art done on chipboard sheets, Amazon has those.

I'm learning a lot.

One of the challenges is that some of the glues can effect the paint over time.  For about 20 years, the advise was to paint on mdf, but now it's no longer recommended.  The paintings are degrading much faster than they should.

I think that's why they are going back to something with a veneer layer to paint on as the wood glue wouldn't touch the paint.


For wood painting, the traditional (pre 1950s) path is to put a glue like hide glue as a sizing to protect the surface from the oil paint. Followed by several layers of gesso to protect the paint from the surface.   I don't know if I'll have enough time for that, so I might have to use acrylic primer which stinks.


Went to the lumber yard.  No cutoffs, but lots of differnt options.  Baltic burch (sp?) had a nice surface.  But still dents and knots.   The shelving wood had more promises.  There is a fancy wood store in town that might be worth a try.

It turns out the size I need is only 12x12".  

The art supply shop sells it with a cradle (like a frame on the back edge to help stabilize the plywood) but unprimed for $22 or higher.  So that's the price to beat.

One full sheet of dented but sanded, the guy called it "baltic burch", or possibly "butch", comes to about $90.  I'm sure there is some math I could do to figure out if it saves money to go this path.  I expect it wouldn't be all usable and there would be a lot of time to get it to 3k grit smooth like the fine art panel.   It also wouldn't have a cradle, but it's class painting which usually isn't wall worthy.

These are Canadian, before tax prices.

For the big plywood, 2 cuts are free at the shop, and each one after is a dollar.  We do have a table saw but it's small and burried.  

I might get to visit the fancy wood shop this week and see if they have anything.

r ranson wrote:It turns out the size I need is only 12x12".  
I might get to visit the fancy wood shop this week and see if they have anything.

R,
Its Baltic Birch, like the tree.  Two things to consider.
First, Baltic Birch is a finished product, and it a relatively  thick finish, but you can sand through that finish trying to sand out dings and nicks. Once you sand through that finish, you hit layered glue areas that will not take paint consistently.  It is generally not made to be sanded on that finish, that's the "finish"
Second, cutting a plywood sheet down to 12x12 panels is going to involve quite a few cuts. Using a table saw that is not set up for sheet breaking is going to involve a lot of  clumsy lifting and that many cuts on a sheet is going to expose any lack of squareness on your saw/blade/table. Since people will be looking at this panel, any lack of square is really going to pop to the eye. Also, your blade, unless it is a fine finish blade and you use the right technique, will splinter the finish.  

I am guessing that you don't have a track saw, which is the best tool in my experience for accurately breaking down sheet goods. Since that's about a $600 investment, you probably won't to pick one up for this project.

The fine wood stores near me are not places I go to find bargains, and they do not stock normally priced plywood.

Amazon has those panels, 4 for $28. Your art supply store is padding their margin quite a bit.

-Jeff

thick finish - do you mean the veneer?  That looks and feels like it's tree veneer (and the guy said that it was wood), not manufactured.  There wasn't any other finish on top of the wood, just sanded to about what 400 grit can do.  I wouldn't want to get rid of that top layer as that's the thing I need most.  

So.. the workshop.  One day, someone said "oh, look, what a lovely big building.  You don't mind if I take over half of it to store my 3+ tonne machine?  And a week later, everything was piled on top of everything else to clear space.  And it turns out a nice, cast iron table saw is the bestest thing to put stuff on.

I'm not allowed to use the table saw because history.  But we do have two style of blades that can fit on with very little adjustments.  One for "ripping" which makes a very thick cut quickly.  We used this on goose houses and other outside building.  One for what I call "soft cutting" which is very thin blade and steels very little wood when it cuts.  It makes an edge that is much softer.  We would have to set up some roller thingies to hold the weight of the wood, which would be a pain to find out where they went too.  

But I don't really want to dig out the table saw if I don't have to.

When you say amazon has them, are you talking about Canada Amazon? Link?

The local store that has the panels in stock where I can look and choose the best one is a professional grade art store.  It shows in their quality and prices.  It's also been in our climate for weeks/months, so would be less likely to move - but on a 12" square, it's not such a big deal.  

the cheapest painting panels with cradle I can find (with 3 star or better in the review) on canada amazon is 4 panels for $60 plus $16 shipping and undisclosed possible import fees.  Delivery about two weeks after the class starts.  (I really need it to arrive before Friday so I have enough time to prime it and the primer to cure).

Art supplies in Canada are expensive.  

I'm also surprised how few 12x12 panels there are as it's a pretty standards painting size.  

There are some more student quality art supply stories in town I hope to try.  These don't have good online shops so it's hard to know what they carry and how  much it is.

Just an idea, if you have any thrift, reStore or junk shops around, is to consider drawer or cabinet fronts. Older ones are usually solid wood so that would get you a nice chunk of fully dried, sanded and flat wood. Depending on the age and quality, you might even end up with the sides and backs as cutable panels too.
Facebook or even if there is a large item garbage day near you could give you a shot at some furniture pieces on the cheap-to-free side.

Dian Green wrote:Just an idea, if you have any thrift, reStore or junk shops around, is to consider drawer or cabinet fronts. Older ones are usually solid wood so that would get you a nice chunk of fully dried, sanded and flat wood. Depending on the age and quality, you might even end up with the sides and backs as cutable panels too.

I was just having this conversation with a family member.  They were showing me the inside of the kitchen drawers and said that this might be an option worth looking into.  

R, two notes on preparing any panel that you choose to work with:

First, seal the reverse side too. Warping is caused by an imbalance of moisture, so if one side is coated and can no longer absorb moisture, and the other is bare, it will be able to absorb moisture unevenly and warp. If, as one side is coated, the moisture from the coating causes warping... then coating the reverse side counteracts the warping, and once dry it remains flat, if it does absorb any moisture from the environment, it will do so slowly and evenly.

Second, shellac might be a good option for sealing, it is commonly used to cover stains and knots that bleed through paint. Shellac is natural, has a yellowy-orange hue, and you can buy it as dry flakes that you dissolve in alcohol or pre-mixed in a can (there's a few brand-name 'stain-killer' shellacs that are tinted white). The best part, is that it dries FAST ! like ten minutes, so recoating goes quickly, and each new coat dissolves into the prior ones...

The 12" x 12" size you are using is likely to be considered "scrap" by most woodworkers. If you know any local woodworkers, furniture or cabinet shops, you might inquire about what they could let you have from their scrap bin. You could take an assortment of material types to test out, as is, in whatever size/shape they might be. You could also ask if someone could trim some of the "scrap" into the size of squares you want (or rectangles). If you have gotten in the door, and they didn't already say "But we're not cutting anything!" then they might consider that quick task as well. They could invoice you an actual (nominal) fee if they are real sticklers, or it could cost a small bribe like "beer-money", or cookies or brownies, or it could just be free if they aren't busy.

Masonite has no glues...it's ground wood that is steamed and pressed and it has a burnished side.  
I have some painted with acrylics from fifty years ago and no warping or signs of wear after much bad storage conditions.
Useful for many things including board for painting.
It was the popular choice back in my college art department days.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonite

I don't know how much shipping would be, but I would be glad to ship you 12x12 pieces of a few different types of plywood. 3/4" thick, 1/2" Thick. Selex, Birch, etc.  I could send some southern yellow pine 1x6 or 1x8 sanded pieces as well. I'm in central NC if you are interested, but i'd be glad to send them to you for the cost of shipping.

That's very kind.  Thank you.   However, shipping in and to canada is crap right now.  On top of that, the postal system can go on strike again in a few weeks.  Perhaps when the world is calmer?

I ended up ordering thses student grade cradled panels partly out of panic as I didn't realize how close the class is.  I won't have time to oil prime, and acrylic does better with a few weeks curing time before putting oils on top.

Featuring an unfinished basswood surface with pine stretcher bars, these panels are ready to be prepared for you media of choice. Coat the surface with gesso, sanding between coats for a smooth yet toothy surface. Try a clear gesso to allow the wood grain to become an integral part of your work or to use the wood as a toned ground to begin your piece.

I'm going to keep on my quest to try different smooth surfaces.   The teacher uses aluminum and I've often wondered if brass would work.  Still haven't gotten to the specialty wood shops yet to see what cutoffs they have.

The wooden panels from the art store are a lovely, soft bass (sp?) wood.  A bit of 800 grit smoothed them down even better.  They seem to be a veneer sandwich with some sort of composite filling.  Very thin, but light and the cradle at the back helps with stability.  I suspect,  it's stable enough that I can get away with just priming the front.

This isn't the most affordable wood ever, so it's worth looking for more options.  

With the gesso, I was surprised how thirsty the wood is.  I've gessoed card and some weird mdf before and that is difficult.  But this wood almost dries the gesso by the time the brush has lifted.  Very hard to smooth.  It will get better as more layers are applied.  I gesso, wait half an hour, sand , repeat. Teacher says at least four layers.



Modern gesso has advantages like being quick to cure in only a few weeks (dry in 20 min).  I can also buy some almost anywhere like a dollar store.  But also, it stinks and I feel like I'm always fighting with it.  I wonder if there are ways to make wood easier to prime.  Or if more traditional oil based gesso solve some of these problems?

This is probably too late for your question, but i was in Dollarama the other day, and saw I think a 6 pack of wooden plywood boards, roughly 30x30 cm, for painting for $4.50. Possibly a light sand after opening the package would make them smooth enough for practice?

That's exciting.  I buy cheap canvas from the dollar store, didn't think to look for wood.  I'll check next time.