As some­one who loves art mate­ri­als, I’ve tried all kinds of dif­fer­ent plein air and stu­dio paint­ing pan­els and have found that some of my favorites are the ones that I’ve made myself.

I started with a sheet of Masonite that had been cut down into 8“x10” pan­els. You can do this your­self, get the gang at the lum­ber yard to do it, or if you have a handy father with a radial arm saw like I do, that works too.
Give the pan­els a light sand. The fin­ish on Masonite is very smooth and has a sheen to it. You want to rough that up so the gesso has some­thing to stick to. I would also knock down the edge where the front of the panel meets the sides. When cut­ting the boards, the edges can become a lit­tle rough.
Wipe the pan­els with a slightly damp rag to get all of the sand­ing dust off. Let the boards dry before you move on to priming.

I’m work­ing with Golden Acrylic Gesso. I’ve used Liq­ui­tex Gesso as well, and have found it to be a great prod­uct. I’m going to be apply­ing 3 lay­ers of gesso. The gesso needs at least 2 hours to dry between coats. How­ever, there is noth­ing wrong with let­ting them dry overnight, or let them sit while you’re out land­scape paint­ing or hav­ing a coffee.

Apply the gesso to the sanded pan­els. I’m using a foam brush. I know. Not what you’d expect, but it does a great job. The foam leaves a very smooth sur­face, and hey, it’s super cheap.
Once the first layer is dry, flip the pan­els over. You will need to give the backs of each panel one layer of gesso. This equal­izes the ten­sion on the board and pre­vents warp­ing. It also seals the pan­els, pro­tect­ing them from mois­ture and also from the oil that is in paint which can rot untreated wood.
Here’s where you can start to con­trol the sur­face qual­ity. Using a fine-grit sand paper, you can sand between each layer of gesso for a super smooth fin­ish. Or leave the foam brush marks for another layer of sur­face texture.

Your pan­els are now tech­ni­cally ready to go. The sur­face will be smooth. Very smooth. This allows you to slide the paint around. You can cre­ate some won­der­ful effects mov­ing and scrap­ing. Some peo­ple, myself included, find the slid­ing a bit dis­tract­ing though. To rem­edy that, give your pan­els about 24 hours to dry, and then move on to the next step.

I’m giv­ing my boards a thin layer of lead white. I’m using Crem­nitze White from Old Hol­land. Flake white or a Foun­da­tion White would work just fine as well.

Brush on a thin layer of lead white oil paint.
Think about how you are apply­ing the paint. Any brush marks that you leave will still be vis­i­ble once the panel is dry
Let the pan­els dry for at least 3 weeks. Longer is bet­ter.
The result of this lead white layer is a sur­face that grabs the paint just enough, but still allows you to move the paint around.

That’s it! You’re all set to start paint­ing. The great thing about mak­ing your own pan­els is the con­trol that you have over the end result. Want it super smooth? Sand between every layer and leave it with just the gesso. Want a more absorbent sur­face? Use a sec­ond layer of lead white. Just make sure that is has a super long time to cure. Just like a bot­tle of wine, these pan­els do get bet­ter with age.