Make Your Own Watercolor Panels

A watercolor panel, like the kind made by Ampersand, is a hardboard, or MDF panel with a coating on it that absorbs water, and in some ways acts like paper. However, unlike paper, the panel is thick, sturdy, and when you frame it, you don't have to use glass. This eliminates the glare factor of displaying your art work.

Also, unlike paper, if you make a catastrophic error, you can use a lot of water and simply scrub the offending area, or entire painting, off the surface and start again. It's a great surface to work on. Unfortunately for me I can't get a reliable supply where I live, and when I can get them they are very pricey.

Unlike the other surfaces that I have used I find the Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground to be very soft and cottony feeling, a lot like good watercolor paper.

Well I decided that what I was going to do was make my own panels. A piece of 4x8 foot hardboard costs about $22.00 at my local hardware store. I know I can get it for a bit less elsewhere, but this place will cut it up for me for free. I can get 26 panels from the sheet of hardbaord varying in size from 8x10 to 18x24 inches. 26 panels is a lot of painting surface. A pint of the Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground is about $16.00 (although, full disclosure, I suspect I'll need more than a pint to cover ALL those panels). Once I had my panels cut I tried a couple of ways to get the surface I wanted.

I used a 2 inch natural bristle brush, the Watercolor Ground and a panel. Oh, and some paper on the table. Really it doesn't get much easier.

Using a dry cloth remove any dust from your panel before you begin. If the panel has a smooth side and a rough side, choose the smooth side as your surface to work on.

Using your brush, working in one direction, apply the first coat. Then after the ground has dried apply the second coat in the opposite direction (90 degrees from the first) you can thin the ground with 10% water and that will help the second (and third coat if required) settle into the brush marks that you may have left behind.

If you like a rougher surface you can use a dense foam roller like this one.

Take your time with the roller, rolling too fast will give you a very sharp, peaked, texture. Also if the ground is starting to dry the roller has a tendency to pick up the ground already laid down on the panel. So take your time and stop if the ground is drying quickly. Then resume rolling with additional coats after the first coat has dried

The roller will give you a texture as rough as, or rougher than rough watercolor paper

I find the brush method gives me a texture more like cold press paper and the ground is really soft and almost cottony feeling. But sometimes I like to work on hot pressed paper for watercolor. If you want a really smooth surface then wait for the ground to dry for 24 hours and take some really fine grit sand paper (or sanding block) and smooth out the texture.

It's really important to wait until the ground is set before sanding it, otherwise you will get some unpleasant marks from the edges of the sanding block (trust me on this)

Now you have to wait 24 hours before painting on it. This is really the hardest part for me.

After you paint it then you should spray it with a protective coating. GOLDEN Archival Aerosol MSA Varnish, Or Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic coating both work wonderfully.

(This painting, The Line Up, is my own, painted with Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks, and protected under copyright to me,)