Can You Paint on Canvas With Watercolors?

Are you a watercolor fan? Do you paint using watercolor techniques? Have you ever thought about skipping the usual watercolor surface and creating on canvas?

Watercolor paper isn't always the ideal choice for everyone. Many artists are drawn to experimenting with watercolor directly on canvas. Often, it's simply curiosity and a desire to try something new. Other reasons may include being able to hang a watercolor painting on the wall right away as a finished piece, or not needing glass or a decorative frame, which would give the work a completely different look. The unique texture of canvas may also be why an artist wants to work on it with watercolors.

Watercolor on Paper

Before we look at how, or whether, you can paint with watercolors on canvas, it's worth considering why paper is the most widely used surface for watercolor and what makes it best suited to this technique. Of course, we mean watercolor paper made for this technique. As you know, papers vary in thickness, composition, and how they're made, and not every type is suitable for watercolor, which uses a large amount of water.

Watercolor paper can be made by hand (hand made) or by machine. That's the first way to tell them apart, and it accounts for a considerable difference in price. Also, higher-quality paper (artist quality) is made from 100% cotton and is acid-free. This ensures that the paper and your work on it won't yellow over time.

Thickness is also important because absorbency and how the paper behaves when you apply water and paint depend on it. All papers weighing less than 300 g per square meter must be prepared before use (secured with painter’s masking tape) so they don’t buckle while you work or interfere with the movement of the paint. Another important factor is the paper’s texture. When buying, look for the labels hot-pressed/cold-pressed/rough, which tell you whether the paper has an extra-smooth, medium, or rough texture.

Watercolor on Canvas

It can be hard to find canvas on our market that is specially made for watercolor, or a primer or gesso suitable for working with watercolors. A basic problem with working on a traditional canvas can be a lack of absorbency. As the description of watercolor paper makes clear, absorbency is one of the most important factors. Canvas prepared for painting with acrylic paints or oil paints is not as absorbent as watercolor paper, so you won’t get the same results as on paper. Instead, you’ll need to work on this kind of surface in a completely different way. The paint will take much longer to dry, so you’ll have to wait longer before painting one color over another. The paint pigment will also adhere less firmly to the canvas because it cannot be absorbed and held in place. As a result, each brushstroke over an existing layer of paint can move the pigment, so the colors won’t layer over each other but will mix.

Of course, none of this has to be a problem if you’re willing to adapt the way you work with watercolor to the properties of canvas. Some of its characteristics can be a disadvantage, but others can even be an advantage. Because the canvas is stretched, it won’t buckle as thinner papers can. You don’t need to glaze and frame the painting, and the longer drying time gives you a longer open stage for corrections.

If you’re willing to experiment and find a way to get better results, you can look for special primer/gesso products to apply to canvas to increase its absorbency and create a surface similar to paper. This kind of product contains more filler (powdered materials that give the mixture its thickness) than traditional products intended, for example, for painting with acrylic paints. You can also try making your own by adding powdered filler, such as calcium carbonate (white chalk) or kaolin, to an acrylic primer/gesso.

Read More From Our Blog

• Can You Paint on an Unstretched Canvas, and How?
• How Much Do You Really Know About Watercolor Techniques?
• 12 Tips for Beginners: How to Start Painting with Watercolor