New to Barkcloth? Here are tips and information to make your experience seamless.

Painting

Barkcloth is an ideal alternative to traditional artist canvas, supporting painting, staining, and mixed-media practices at scale. It can be worked unstretched and unmounted, encouraging process-led, material-focused approaches common in contemporary art education. Its natural imperfections produce visually interesting artwork in comparison to regular cotton canvas.

Raw (Unprimed) Surface
When used without primer, the fabric absorbs liquid media directly into the fibres. This produces soft transitions, bleeding edges, and a matte finish, allowing for exploration into staining, layering, and chance-driven processes.

Common uses include:

  • Acrylic washes

  • Ink and pigment

  • Dye-based or fluid applications

We do not recommend using oil paint on unprimed Barkcloth as it can degrade the fibres.

Primed Surface
Priming Barkcloth transforms it into a more familiar painting surface, allowing paint to sit on the canvas predictably and enabling sharper marks and controlled layering.

Suitable for:

  • Acrylic painting

  • Oil painting (on properly primed fabric)

  • Mixed-media and collage

Priming can be carried out before or after cutting to size, making the material adaptable to different teaching contexts.

We recommend priming with at least three coats of Acrylic Gesso for all paint mediums. For maximum longevity, primer should be applied to both sides.

Have a look at our Tiktok for tutorial and inspiration here!

Experimental Use

Barkcloth remains relatively ambiguous in contemporary artistry. The full extent of it’s applications are yet to be understood, making it well suited to multidisciplinary experimentation.

Barkcloth possesses a non-woven fibrous structure, with the crossing arrangement of fibres producing its distinct texture.

Research has previously been done by Manchester Metropolitan University into the medical applications of Ugandan Barkcloth, finding potential for usage as wound dressing due to it’s antimicrobial properties.(Link here)