Choosing your surface in Easel before the first stroke

In most painting programs the canvas is a white rectangle and nothing more. In Easel by Zaweba it's the first real decision you make, the same as it would be in an art shop. Every picture starts on a surface, and every surface has its own tooth and absorbency. That changes how pencil catches, how watercolour spreads and how thick paint sits, so it's worth a minute of thought before you begin.

There are twelve to choose from. Here's how I'd think about them if you're new to the studio.

Canvas and the papers

Stretched canvas is where to start for oil and acrylic. It has a woven grain that shows through thin paint and gets hidden under thick paint, just as it does in life. Lay down a thin glaze and you'll see the weave; build up impasto and the canvas disappears under the ridges.

The watercolour papers are made for wet work. They're absorbent, so a wash soaks in and spreads, and the grain of the paper breaks up granulating colours into little speckles. If watercolour is what drew you to Easel, pick one of these and leave canvas for another day. Paint behaves very differently on each.

Card is smoother and less thirsty. It's a good choice for pens, fineliners and felt tips, where you want crisp lines rather than ink bleeding into the fibres. Graphite on card is clean and even.

Pastel paper in six colours

Pastel paper comes in six colours, and that's not just decoration. Pastel artists rarely work on white, because a mid-tone paper lets you add lights and darks and leave the paper showing through as a middle value. The rough tooth grabs pastel, chalk and charcoal, so strokes break up attractively when you press lightly and fill in when you press harder.

The surprising ones

Wood, brick, concrete and blackboard are where Easel gets playful. Each has its own texture that shows through what you put on it.

Brick and concrete are the surfaces for spray paint. If you're planning a mural or a piece of street art, painting it on brick first shows how the mortar lines and rough faces will break up your colour. Wood has a grain that runs through thin paint, nice for a rustic sign or a painted box design. And blackboard is made for chalk, so you can sketch a cafe menu or a lesson diagram the way it will really look.

Picking a size

Once you've chosen the surface, choose how big it is. Easel offers A-sizes, squares or custom sizes in millimetres, at anything from 72 to 300 DPI, up to 24 million pixels. If you're painting for the screen, a lower DPI keeps things light and quick. If you want to print, go higher.

Big canvases need plenty of memory. An A3 sheet at 300 DPI uses about 1 GB, so on a modest PC it's sensible to start smaller and work up. Easel paints on your graphics card, and a mid-range card handles that A3 sheet smoothly. On a basic built-in chip it still works; wet paint just moves a little more slowly rather than your strokes lagging behind the pen.

Matching surface to medium

Nothing stops you putting oil on watercolour paper or pencil on brick, and sometimes the odd pairing is the interesting one. But as a rough guide, think about what the real material would want. Wet media want something absorbent. Dry media want tooth. Spray wants a wall. Pens want something smooth.

The nice thing about trying combinations in Easel is that nothing is wasted. No ruined sheets of expensive paper, no primed canvas in the bin. For art students practising techniques before buying materials, that's reason enough to spend an evening just testing surfaces with each tool.

Choose a surface, choose a size and make a mark. You'll feel the difference straight away, and that's the whole point of starting on something real.