Painting On A Cardboard Box
Sometimes I feel compelled to paint. On such occasions, drawing or watercolors are not at an adequate substitute. But what do you do when you do not have anything to paint on? Improvise!
This recently happened to me on a long cruise in the Caribbean. I had brought along three canvas panels but in a frenzy of painting, I used up all of the panels. Wanting to paint more, I set out to find some additional canvases or panels in some of the ports of call. However, while these island ports had plenty of stores selling jewelry, t-shirts and souvenirs, I was unable to find one that sold canvas. There probably were such stores but in the few hours we were in the ports, I was unable to find one. I asked one local artist that I met where he bought canvas and he replied: “Amazon”. Returning to the ship, I recalled that some of the works by Toulouse Lautrec and other Montmartre artists of the late 19th century are on cardboard. So I asked the manager of one of the restaurants whether he had any cardboard boxes in which food or other supplies had come in. He gave me a box that had finished its mission of transporting Evion bottles and which was about to be discarded. Borrowing a pair of scissors from Guest Services, I dissected the Evion box into a set of panels. Due to holes cut into the cardboard for purposes like carrying the box, not all of the box was useful. However, it did yield four panels of various size. My plan was to paint with acrylics. However, since the cardboard was not primed, I was concerned that the paint might disperse into the cardboard in an uncontrollable manner if I thinned it with too much water. Therefore, I used a minimum of water. The cardboard held the paint surprisingly well. In addition, it seemed to give the images a unique tone. Indeed, I let the unpainted surface of the cardboard show through in places like I would in drawing a pastel on tan-toned paper. One problem was the corrugation underlying the surface of the cardboard produced a wavey effect. While it was hardly noticeable to the naked eye, this effect was much more pronounced in the photos I took of the finished works. Consequently, I think that this cardboard would have been a difficult support for a photorealist work. However, inasmuch as the ideas I was trying to capture were more loose and abstract, I was content with the results. In all, the bow provided support for four small works. They were quite well received when exhibited and one was sold. 
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Art Travel - Painting On A Cardboard Box