Preparing Illustration Boards

It's damp, cold and drizzling here today. No sunshine to draw me out of the studio. An excellent day to catch up office work and get the next painting going.  Got the drawing almost finished of the neighbors, "The Hardheads", so now I need a surface to paint them on.  I prefer a very smooth finished surface and so I am preparing some illustration board in the workspace I have set up for that purpose as well as for stretching canvas.  I give both sides of the illustration board, which is cut to the size I need a coat of gesso.  You have to wait for each side to dry before doing the other side (obviously) and then, the side I will paint on gets two more coats of gesso.  When it is absolutely bone dry, I will sand it with very fine sand paper to a very smooth finish.  All this takes a good amount of time.....so I will move on to another project while I wait..