[LAUIL602] In Conversation with Ashley Bowersox: Painting, Sizing, and Grounding

•  https://www.instagram.com/abowersox/

• https://www.saatchiart.com/The_Sox

• https://www.facebook.com/Ashley-Bowersox-Art-332579953492527/

I was able to network with Ashley Bowersox, a Yale Fellow and Graduate from MassArt in Boston, Massachusetts, who hails from Berlin in Germany. She is an Artist and Painter. Studying in Fine Art, she has acquired a wealth of knowledge that I wanted to tap into regarding paints, gesso-ing, and grounding a canvas, the different mediums available to add to paints for effects. There's so much information and I'm not sure where to start on my own! 

Notes from our Conversation: 

• "At the size you currently work at, you could afford to play around with mediums and slightly more pricey paints. Golden Acrylics makes the bees knees of acrylic paints and a whole host of mediums you can mix in to add texture, gloss, and/or matteness." https://www.goldenpaints.com/technicalinfo/technicalinfo_mattemed

• "Proper gesso application (the ground layer) is very important. The first coats should be diluted with water so that they properly absorb into the canvas rather than lay on top of the fibers. Depending on where you look online the suggested ratios are different, if a gesso is incredibly thick you will have to play around and experiment but generally a 60/40 ratio (applied twice) and then a 80/20 layer is a very good grounding. If it gets too runny the binder in the acrylic will break down."

• "To the gesso/water mixture you could add a small amount of the matte medium to achieve a truly matte texture."

• Rereading your message I had initially just focused on what you said was gesso - but I think you may be referring to a final coating? With Acrylic paints you shouldn't need anything unless you wanted to use UV protection for the paints. https://www.goldenpaints.com/technicalinfo/technicalinfo_polvar This product page explains perfectly how the painting can be protected with Ultra Violet Stabilizers. But, I would say it's not critical.

• "If you are going for luminous and a world of texture and body, Golden or Liquitex paints are going to be what you should be using, and if you use them as directed in the product sheets and DOES NOT mix brands while painting you will get the most reliable results. Golden is an A+ company that has been designing/formulating paints for artists for nearly 100 years at this point. They are fab!"

• "Another critical point is letting the paints dry appropriately. If you aren't giving them a couple months to dry (I know they aren't oils but for oils it's years!) there can be chemical processes that will get trapped under any sealing layer you are adding. Which can causing milkiness, bubbles, etc."

• If you do decide to work with the golden paints, you can read in the product page I sent. The UV sealant comes in Matte, Satin, Gloss, if you are playing with textures and different levels of matte -ness you will have to keep that in mind if you go to coat the final works.

• Matte-ness. and gloss are simply the uppermost layer of texture - applying a gloss UV coating will destroy any underlying differentiation. The UV seal is also not reversible if applied directly the the paint, so an isolation layer needs to be applied first.

• If you have any more questions you can email me! anbowersox@gmail.com

Reflection:

There is a whole heap of information to get stuck into! I had never heard of Golden Acrylics but do use Liquitex acrylic paints, gesso and matte finish. I applied gesso as it was out of the tub, and never considered it may need watering down. I think the gesso I use it already water-based but this can be something I experiment more with in the near future to get the layers just right and built up evenly. I have never used canvas fabric directly, which is stretched over a frame, which is where the gesso needs to be watered down first and applied. I have been using wooden boards or canvas boards that have already been grounded with gesso. It is important to learn not to mix brands as the paints and mediums may not work well together - having been specially creating for that company to work together. I didn't know that acrylics took a couple of months to dry properly! 

It was extremely beneficial to connect with Ashley and add her to my growing network of professional contacts. Her advice has been invaluable.

What next? How can I imbed this information into my practice? I will need to read over the notes a number of times and start to experiment with different mediums. I have a matte medium, which helps to matte-ify and increase the saturation of the colours. I would like to make my own canvas frame, with stretched canvas fabric over it, and learn how to properly apply gesso through experimentation. Making my own canvases will be a step forward in my professionalism and authenticity as an artist, rather than buying them cheaply from Amazon. They work for now while I am learning and while we are in a pandemic, but bigger canvases are what professional artists paint, sell, and exhibit.