The History of Canvas and Acrylic Paint

Canvas

Art is a very important part of every culture and has been around since people first began to draw and paint on cave walls. Wood planks and stones were used as canvases for ancient drawings and paintings up until the Renaissance Era (1400 - 1700). The history of canvas started in Italy during the Renaissance Era. The word "canvas" is a variant of the Arabic word for cannabis (hemp) and came about because for many centuries, people used hemp on a large scale instead of flax as a textile fiber. After hemp, linen canvas became the preferred medium for oil paints. Cotton duck canvas was popularized by poor artists in the early twentieth century.

Acrylic Paint

Compared to oil and watercolors, the history of acrylic paint is fairly modern. The synthetic paint was first used in the 1940's combining the properties of oil and watercolor. Acrylic paint was made commercially available in the 1950's. It increased the use and popularity of cotton duck canvas.

I personally love to work with acrylic paint because it's easy to clean up, it dries quickly, you can use it on so many different surfaces and it's very durable. There are so many different acrylic painting ideas you can come up with. I will be posting a lot of mine here in this blog to help you decide on your next painting project. I have a page just on Painting Picture Ideas to help you choose subjects and use as models for your paintings.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you have in the comments section.



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