Crinkle Painting

Gather unto you some supplies: 

• Unprimed unshrunk canvas fabric 

• Oil Paint 

• Paint Brushes 

• A palette surface (disposable or durable) 

• Colorless odorless Terpenoid 

Consider for easy cleanup: 

• Plastic Sheeting 

• Disposable Tablecloth 

• Dish Liquid 

• Disposable Gloves 

• A smock, apron, or “grubbies” 

Time of work: From 30 minutes to a few hours 

Time from start to finish: 2 weeks (because of drying times) 

I like to use a craft table covered in plastic sheeting. Since paint will bleed through the canvas and stain whatever is underneath, I recommend being mindful of protecting surfaces you care about.  

I use oil paints for this project. At the end, you will be using a hot iron, and I find oil paints the most forgiving for enduring the application of heat. 

This technique creates a unique textured look.  

Create Ridges: Use unprimed cotton canvas for this project. Cut your canvas to size, and give yourself a few inches on the length and the width to allow for shrinking and mounting on stretcher bars.  

Wad the canvas up in a ball and dunk it in hot water. When it’s fully saturated with water, wring the water out of the canvas and wad it into a ball. This is how you’ll create the texture of your final canvas, so wrinkle it as much as possible while you’re doing this. 

Let your wrinkled canvas air dry. I put mine in a tub near the radiator in the winter, and in a sunny indoor location if its summer. If you leave it in a balled-up wad to dry, this will increase the wrinkledness of the dry canvas.  

First Swipe: When your canvas is dry, put it on a flat painting surface. Pull it out of its wrinkled waddeness partly, but not all the way. See your major ridges and use your brush in a horizontal motion to graze the peaks of fabric.  I use undiluted paint for this step, to preserve the integrity of the ridges. 

The painting motion for this step is a horizontal graze across the highest peaks of your canvas.  

When the peaks are painted, let the piece set for a couple of days, or until the oil paint won’t come off on your hands when you touch it.  

Second Swipe: Pull the edges of your canvas further apart and weigh down the corners with something heavy. With the peaks and ridges painted and already dry, you can turn your attention to the other surfaces within the painting.  

In this next step, you’re safer to use some colorless odorless terpenoid with your paint on your palette, to thin the paint and allow you to graze across the canvas surfaces beyond the major ridges and peaks of the canvas. 

Let the paint cure again until it doesn’t come off on your hand when you touch it.  

Third and continuing swipes: Repeat as desired. 

When you’re happy with your painting, let it set until the paint is completely dry. With oil paints, this can take several days. It’s important to do this because when you iron it, any paint that’s not dry will come off in the ironing process. 

Iron: Iron the canvas by placing the canvas painted side down on a towel. Ensure the towel is not one you like a lot, because its very likely this process will ruin the towel.  Ensure the iron is not touching the painted side of the canvas, because this will get pain on your iron. I use the steam setting. Iron the canvas until all the wrinkles are out of it. 

When you have a finished product, a framer can get it stretched on a frame for you. For a more economical do-it-yourself option, see post on stretching your own canvas on canvas a stretcher bars.