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Claybord

Claybord

This museum quality panel is coated with a smooth absorbent clay ground comparable to the clay gesso grounds used during the Renaissance. Archival, lightfast, and acid free, the panels are ideal for acrylics, gouache, tempera, egg tempera, pen and inks as well as for mixed media techniques, airbrush, and collage. The surface is additive and subtractive. Remove paints to add contrast, texture, tonal value and fine details. Perfect for any artwork that requires an extremely smooth surface.

Scratch bord

Scratchbord is a clay coated hardboard panel for scratchboard that is coated with India ink. Comparable to traditional paper scratchboard, except better – it’s more durable and easier to scratch into for cleaner and crisper details and lines. For added dimension, colored inks can be added to the white areas and then scratched again for additional highlights and volume. Artwork can be sprayed with Claybord Fixative allowing the finished scratchboard to be framed without glass!

Pastelbord

Pastelbord is a clay and gesso coated hardboard panel with a granular marble dust finish comparable to a sanded pastel paper except more durable and more versatile. It can be used with wet or dry traditional pastel techniques or with acrylics, and more! The coating is pH neutral and non-yellowing, making it a truly permanent museum quality surface.
Available in Gray, Green, Sand and White.

Aquabord/texturebord

Aquabord is a clay coated hardboard panel that gives watercolorists unprecedented freedom and control. Comparable to watercolor paper, this multimedia panel simulates the absorbency and texture of cold pressed but allows color to be lifted back to white easily while also leaving the richest, most vibrant color possible. This reworkable surface provides natural looking highlights, fluid glazes, transparent subtle layers, and the ability to lift color while the surface is wet or even after it is dry. The truly amazing part is that finished watercolors can be sealed with Claybord Fixative and displayed without glass!

Gessobord

Save hours of applying and sanding gesso with perfectly hand-crafted Gessobord. The thick acrylic polymer gesso ground has been sanded to an exceptional finish you’ll love. Perfect for layering, glazing, alla prima and impasto in oils, acrylics, alkyds or water-based oils. The surface is pH neutral and acid free.

Ampersands Artist Panel, is an acrylic gesso surface on MDF panel for oils and acrylics. Economically priced for students, leisure and budget minded painters, this surface has a wonderful canvas-like texture that gives artists the advantages of a panel with the feel of a fine canvas. Choose from three profiles: 1 1/2" Gallery Profile, 3/4"Traditional Profile, and a 3/8" flat panel with a hanging slot for quick & easy hanging.

New Claybord Ink Set! - $32.95
Formulated for adding color to scratchboard, these terrific inks create vibrant colors without leaving an inky residue on black areas. On Claybord & other fine surfaces, these inks can also be used for painting and drawing. What a perfect accessory to the Ampersand line and the new project booklets! Ink set includes 6 -.5 oz bottles in carmine red, yellow, light green, ultramarine blue, sepia and magic black repair

Claybord Tools - $54.30
Use the Ampersand tools to work with the Claybord panels and for scratchboard. The Claybord Toolkit comes with one each of the tools shown below, a piece of steel wool and a free piece of Claybord Smooth for experimentation. Tools are also available packaged individually

Steel Wool - $9.60
Our oil-free artist grade steel wool was designed for removing pigment from large areas and for creating tonal values. It leaves Claybord clean and white when used to remove inks, watercolors, gouache, etc. Each package comes with one pad of each grade 0000, 000, and 00.

Line tool - $21.35
Use the needle tool for parallel lines and easy cross-hatching. This tool has four needles tightly pressed together so you can create extremely fine cross-hatching details.

Scratch Knife Holder (with Two Nibs) - $14.35
Use this standard scratchboard tool for thin or wide controlled line drawing.

Wire Brush - $15.50
Use this tool for creating random textures including hair, grass and feathers. Many curved metal wires are held together in this wood handled tool

Fibre Brush - $24.40
This tool is used for creating gradual tonal values or crisp edges. It is fashioned out of fiberglas so that the pigment can be removed leaving soft edges. Use a soft brush to remove the dust because the fibers can cause skin irritation.

http://www.ampersandart.com

An Archival New Panel Made for the Unique Demands of Encaustic Painting
Only Encausticbord has a ready to use surface formulated for the unique demands of encaustic painting and mixed media. Encaustic gesso is applied to Ampersand’s sealed Hardbord™ panel to form a bright, smooth and velvety surface that is ready to use with the ancient technique of encaustic painting. The ground is not only heat resistant and highly absorbent, but also holds tight to layers of wax and collage without the fear of cracking or separation. Encausticbord is available in 5 profiles: 1/8” flat, ¼” flat, 7/8” cradle, 1.5” cradle and 2” deep cradle.

A Creative Collaboration between Ampersand™ and R&F Handmade Paints
This creative collaboration began in 2008 when the two manufacturers, authorities in their respective fields of wood painting panels and encaustic paint colors, started working together to dream up the perfect surface for encaustic paints. This combination of Ampersand’s archival panel coating technology and R&F’s expertise in encaustics led to Encausticbord™, a unique wood panel that has the tooth to hold encaustic and mixed media unlike any other surface.

Why do you need a surface for encaustic?
Richard Frumess from R&F Handmade paints explains: “When I began painting in encaustic in the early eighties, one of my first questions was “What can I paint on?” In 1988, I began building a business manufacturing encaustic paint and in 23 years, this question remains one of the most commonly asked. The answer has been that a support should be dimensionally stable. It should be as absorbent as possible. It should be heat resistant. Plywoods and hardboards were able to fill this purpose. If you wanted a white background however, you would have to mount watercolor paper to your panel or use the labor-intensive rabbit skin glue gesso method. Happily, when we joined forces with Ampersand, we were able to craft a one-word answer: Encausticbord. Encausticbord comes with a smooth uniform white ground with the tooth and absorbency of traditional glue gesso, but it is also a multimedia board that allows you to use oil paint or aqueous paints, either alone or as under-layers for encaustic.”

Through months of exhaustive research and testing, Ampersand and R&F ensured that encaustic paints adhered exceptionally well to this new painting ground and that Encausticbord was the most archival and dimensionally stable panel available. The ultimate goal was to provide a surface that would give encaustic artists the opportunity to expand their artistic voice. With Encausticbord, artists have the freedom to use encaustics in combination with other mediums without the fear that their panel will not stand up to the unique demands of mixed-media applications.

Ideal for all Types of Encaustics, Oils, Image-transfers and Collage
Professional encaustic painters attest to how exceptionally well Encausticbord works when used alone with encaustic paint or in combination with a wide variety of mixed media techniques including collage, oil paints and oil sticks, image transfers and incising. Encausticbord makes it easy to create incredible textures, colors and patterns because of its remarkably receptive surface.

About Encaustic Paint
What makes encaustic uniquely different from all other mediums is its use of heat. The paint, comprised of beeswax, damar resin and powdered pigment, is applied molten and then re-heated. Encaustic reaches its permanent state upon cooling. This process allows for a dazzling array of effects and textures not possible with any other medium.

A Little History
Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C. practiced encaustic painting. The word "encaustic" comes from Greek and means to “burn in”, which refers to the process of fusing the paint. Perhaps the best known of all encaustic works are the Fayum funeral portraits painted in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. by Greek painters in Egypt. In the 20th century, the availability of portable electric heating implements and the variety of tools has made encaustic a far less formidable technique. This factor has created a resurgence of encaustic painting, and it is once again taking its place as a major artists' medium. Alfonso Ossorio, Jasper Johns, Lynda Benglis, Robert Morris, and Nancy Graves are prominent among the many artists who turned encaustic into a modernist and cross-disciplinary medium.