GESSO-Black Vs Grey Vs White

You know, if you don't have black gesso at home, don't go out running for it at the store unless you have a coupon from one of the stores. Use your white gesso, paint your surface, let it dry, then paint or sponge over it with black acrylic paint.

I have used grey gesso to make my surface a neutral color more or less before I painted my scene on it. I still like white gesso the best. If I want texture to the gesso, sponge it, or stamp into it with a stamp pad. Run a fork through it, use brillo and rub lightly, use a credit card or gift card (used) and run over the gesso to create a swirl pattern.

I blow dry my gesso slowly and on a medium heat. It really needs to be dry first before painting on it to keep the bumps and texture that you want.

Layers of collage

In this collage, after applying the acrylic paint with a credit card on a prepared canvas board, I used a tan brown color, an olive green color and an aqua blue scraped over the canvas approximately 3-4 times, drying the layers in between with a blow dryer.

I used a baby wipe, paper towel and a scraping tool to make marks and wipe off paint in places to have layers of color peek through. What I realized was that the value of the paints were almost the same, so the layers were getting a bit muddled and merky. Then I applied the white with stencils and build up from there.

I noticed how much I love bird images so I added that along with some papers with shades of a burgundy red. Using stamp pads with french writing, I added white, black, and red inks.

I wrote with black and white marker, applied transparent black letters, dripped olive green ink, and I love the use of charcoal around edges and across the whole piece creating a shabby piece.

Believe it or not, I did journal on how to do a collage and why I like to collage all over this piece. It is quite subliminal where some of the writing shows and some doesn't.

Enjoy! Now I know what it looks like to apply colors I like and colors I don't!