They'll Call Me a Genius! (if this works)

      I was all fired up to start painting #3 but then I found that I'm all out of my heavy watercolour paper.  I always use the rough heavyweight paper because of the nice texture and variances the in flow of the paint when I just let it go where it wants.  The weight of the paper doesn't mean a whole lot to me except that when I really make the paper wet, the lighter stuff warps all up to the point where, if I don't watch it, it will create pools of paint that results higher concentration of color where I don't want it.  I have several pads of watercolour paper that has teh texture I like put is thin, so has the potential to warp.  What I'm going attempt to do is back this cheaper paper with the masonite boards I was going to use for oil paint.  The masonite is 8 bucks for a 4'x8' sheet so if this works I'll have an inexpensive way to make my cheap paper more stable than the expensive stuff, it'll be win-win!  

I start by cutting my masonite down to a size just slightly larger than my paper, this time I'm using Strathmore Lanaquarelle 140lb cold press, slightly smoother than "rough", but not as smooth as hot press.

Next, I put some glue on the board.  I know it looks like regular elmer's but its actually an achival acid neutral glue.  I don't want to just use any old glue, I know just about anything will do the job of sticking my paper down, but since this is something I hope will adorn somebody's wall long after I'm gone, I need to take special care to use something thats not going to eventually break down of yellow the paper.  Purists may tell me that the binding agents in the masonite will do jsut that, but I'm hoping the fancy glue will act as a barrier against that. I use an old cut-up credit with notches in it to spread the glue (waste not want not)

 I flip the back of the paper onto the board and before I rub it down with my hands I place a couple pieces of printer paper on top. Not only will this keep the crud from my hands from getting on my painting surface, but if there is a little glue squeeze-out at the edges and I smear my hand all over this thing, there's a good chance I'll get glue on my painting surface. Right now it won't seem like  a big deal since the glue will dry clear, the paint in that spot won't absorb right and be a real bummer when I go to paint. 

 I grab a bunch of my heavy reference books to press this thing together while it dries overnight.





 

 Well, it looks solid enough, I guess I won't know how effective it is until I'm in the middle of painting this thing, I hope I don't live to regret trying this. Like, if say, it causes me to have to totally repaint the whole thing because of some unforseen issue. Wish me luck!