The cat sat on the mat.....

Only it wasn't the cat, it was a dog..... A problem spotted today on Facebook: someone asking for advice about how to re-tighten a canvas on which she was finishing an oil painting, after the dog sat on it. I know you shouldn't laugh, but ........ well, I'm afraid I did! Presumably she'd taken it off the easel and laid it flat somewhere - even the most athletic of dogs would have trouble shinning up an easel to sit on the painting. And there are so many other questions - was the paint still wet? Did the dog sit on anything else with a painty backside? Has she had to pick hairs out of the paint? Could she exhibit the painting as a collaborative effort? Is the dog seeking a career in art criticism (he couldn't be any worse than the Guardian's resident idiot)? After someone suggested she should get the dog to sit on the other side of the painting, I thought I wouldn't pour oil on troubled waters by offering advice - somebody else more usefully suggested hammering in the canvas keys, but I've always found those things worse than useless: I suspect they're only there for show, because they seem to have next to no effect on tightening canvas. Best advice of course - don't let the dog sit on your painting in the first place, but I realize this is a bit late now... One of the few problems we haven't had on POL, so far as I remember.

I've never seen a watercolour canvas, but I know they exist - are they very absorbent? Is that why the colours seem wrong to you (Margaret)? I would imagine that they'd take gesso, and work with acrylics, as Syd suggests. I agree with him about canvas, too - I now only use it for acrylics, and not always for them. They are good to paint on, it's quite true, but quite honestly they've done so much damage to oil painted surfaces over the centuries by their flexibility and vulnerability to atmospheric conditions that I prefer to paint my oils on a rigid surface (and if I can break out of my current painter's block, I'll get on with another one: infuriating, wanting to paint but being apparently unable to settle on a subject!). I would never use a cheap canvas from a DIY store, or one of these high street outfits - a friend of mine has done, and the surface doesn't do his work justice: they're so thin and badly made that you can see the marks of the stretcher bars on the surface of the cloth, and it's always there: you can't obscure it with paint, or get rid of it. They're also extremely easily damaged. A high quality, heavy linen canvas is another thing altogether - that really is an experience to paint on, and I'd risk oils on one. If I were starting out, as indeed I did when I was, I wouldn't use a cheap canvas but the best quality oil painting paper I could get, or the old standby, the Daler board. Many a good painting has been entrusted to these, and provided you take care of them they last very well - and are a better investment than canvas, certainly better than cheap canvas. It's true of course that when you're beginning to want a cheap surface, and it doesn't matter if you make a mess on it - but what if you actually paint a good picture, and want to keep it, on one of these surfaces? You'd have been better off with a good oil painting paper or board. And we do sometimes produce a good painting by accident - as well as the rotten ones.... I think I might have asked this before, bound to repeat myself after 5,000 posts - but does anyone remember the oil painting paper which was so thick it was almost like lino, with the very distinctive smell, and the brown paper backing? I haven't seen it for years - it was a bit cumbersome in use, but actually lovely to paint on; wonder if anyone still makes it?