How to make cotton canvas smoother

All canvas needs to be primed before you start painting, to ensure the paint isn’t absorbed into the surface. The more layers of primer (often referred to as gesso) that you add, the smoother the surface becomes.

For acrylic paintings, one or two coats of gesso are normally recommended, and for oil colour, two to four coats. If you do apply more than one coat, it’s a good idea to sand the dry gesso in between coats using fine sandpaper, and you should wait at least an hour between coats. Before painting on a gessoed surface, make sure you wait a minimum of 24 hours. You can learn more about priming canvas in this article.

If you have a pre-primed cotton canvas that you would like to make smoother, you can add more layers of gesso yourself. There are also cotton canvases that are specially designed for fine detail work, such as Winsor & Newton’s Cotton Smooth canvas. It has a very fine weave and an ultra-smooth surface, which is ideal for intricate detail and portrait painting.