For most of my paintings I use canvasboards, small (30/24 cm) and cheap (0,50 EUR), needs very little paint, I paint flat so I can turn it around if necessary. The drying too fast and the soaking of the liq. white (Bob warns for that) can be solved by adding two or three layers of gesso before starting, I always do it now. Warping of the boards is sometimes a problem, then I try to bow it back before painting, but the problem is not solved, if framed later the warping is not visible anymore. I will not buy these, if already visible in the shop. When the board feels steady, it seems ok. Panels, based on a wooden (MDF) underground, doesn't warp, as far as I know. When finished and dry after two weeks I store them in a map, some also in a seperate plastic map to avoid sticking together. An other issue is that after some time (>1 year) the paint (especially thick parts, like snow on the mountain) seems to creep into the canvas and it doesn't look as good as it was, maybe the used cheap gesso is part of this problem. Another problem was with varnishing after a year: it seems to eat up some paint on some thinner painted parts, maybe also caused by the cheap white gesso layer (didn't have that with black gesso paintings). Sometimes the structure of the canvas of the board shows through the paint, gessoing the board will prevent this most of the times. If a smooth surface is needed, fine sandpaper can be used to get the gesso layer smooth (Dirk1968 is specialist for that, he also use canvasboards). So I hope this helps a bit, I write to Helen haha!
