Selecting The Right Art Panel: Wood or Plastic?

udson Highland offers both wooden and solid polymer art panels. Choosing an art panel can be a matter of aesthetics, working properties, longevity, or a host of other factors.

n terms of durability and archival permanence, not even the finest quality, best prepared wood panels can match our SOLID GROUND™ polymer panels. Even superior "engineered wood" panels like MDF, hardboard/Masonite™, and HDF – wood products which have been taken apart fiber-by-fiber and then put back together in a factory to make them stronger and more uniform than the original wood from which they were made – have variations, irregularities, and weaknesses which cannot be fully overcome. Wood fibers will always be subject to expansion and contraction from humidity. The resins that hold them together are imperfect binders, and lignin in particular is particularly prone to degradation. An art panel made of appropriate plastic polymers, on the other hand, will be much more reliable and long lived. (Please refer to our Wood Panel Science section for detailed information on the durability and conservation of wood panels.)

n addition to longevity, polymer panels offer surface properties that out-perform even the best primed or gessoed wood panel. Plastic panels lend themselves to precision micro-abrasion, a process which we use to give them exceptionally exquisite finishes. Their receptiveness to paint – their paint handling properties – surpass any primed surface. And the strength and durability with which paints bond to their surface can't be matched by any primer. The result: better painted and more durable artworks.

ooden panels offer many aesthetic and associative values from their long use as painting supports. They bring to mind tradition, fine craftsmanship, and perhaps a certain earthiness associated with wood, as well as a sense of strength and durability. Carefully designed and prepared panels like our Primewood™ art panels can provide far greater durability than canvas or linen painting supports, improperly prepared wooden art boards, or inferior hardboard panels.

motions and associations are, of course, no small matter when discussing art and creativity! Getting the right feelings from your materials can be critically important. Generating the right impressions by your choice of materials can be, too.

f your artwork demands a wooden substrate, please consider our Primewood™ Panels – designed to be the most durable wooden panel you can buy. If you're looking for the most advanced painting surfaces available – panels that will make truly outstanding artworks – then we recommend that you try SOLID GROUND™.