If you’re new to acrylic painting, you’re in the paint aisle of your favorite art store to stock up on the basics. Canvas… Cotton? Linen? Brushes, spalters, knives? What colors to buy? What about gesso? Is it compulsory to use gesso for a successful painting?
What is gesso?
Gesso is a product with a texture identical to acrylic paint. It is a coating that is brushed onto a surface before painting.
Gesso is used as an undercoat to prepare the surface to be painted, and can therefore be applied equally well to canvas, wood, metal, etc. It has excellent covering power.
You can find it ready-to-use in any art supply store, in tubes, bottles, jars or sprays.
Gesso is available in white, black and transparent.
When it comes to acrylic paint, most painting canvases, whether linen or cotton, are already primed. The manufacturer already applies a thin layer of primer, such as gesso, so you can paint directly on it without having to apply an undercoat.
However, you can brush gesso over the canvas:
🖌️ if you don’t like the grain of the canvas;
🖌️ if you’re going to paint in thin coats and don’t want the grain to stand out unsightly;
🖌️ if you want to cover up a painting you don’t like and reuse the canvas stretcher.
Preparing a canvas: to coat with gesso or not?
There’s no need to coat the canvas before painting. I’m talking about acrylic paint, the medium I know best. As for oil painting, I leave it to you to seek information from artists who use this type of paint.
Gesso creates an undercoat that covers the surface evenly, making it perfectly flat and smooth. It allows acrylic paint to adhere more easily, without creating unsightly effects caused by the grain of the canvas, for example. If you’re working with several layers of acrylic paint, you don’t need to coat the canvas with gesso beforehand. The various coats of paint will mask any grain or roughness present on the canvas.
On wood, on the other hand, it’s essential to brush on gesso as an undercoat. In this way, you cover the wood’s natural hue before applying acrylic colors. What’s more, gesso waterproofs the substrate, fills in grooves and small cracks, and so on.
The different types of gesso: which one to choose?
There are different colors of gesso: black, white and transparent. The choice of gesso color is personal: it depends on the effect you want to achieve. White gesso stays white after application and makes the surface perfectly smooth, black gesso lets you work on a canvas with a black background, and transparent gesso visually reveals the original color of the surface while smoothing it out. You can also add color pigments to your gesso yourself.
Gesso comes in a variety of packaging: jar, tube, spray, etc. It’s up to you to choose the one that suits you best. It’s up to you to choose the one that suits you best. I use gesso in a pot, applied with a spalter-type brush.
Gesso is not expensive: it costs around 10 euros for 1 liter of product.
📌 Note that to prepare a canvas, you can also use a coat of white acrylic paint as an undercoat.
💡 For more advice on equipment, see all my tips here 💪.
How to use gesso?
Gesso is applied directly to the surface with a brush.
Undercoat: obtain a smooth, ready-to-paint surface
✅ Use undiluted, straight from the jar.
✅ You’ll need a special brush dedicated to gesso, as this medium can damage brushes if they’re not cleaned properly.
✅ Use 1 spalter, wide brush.
✅ Apply gesso to the tips of the spalter’s bristles. There’s no need to use a lot of product, otherwise it will create reliefs. Brush it onto the canvas in criss-cross strokes.
✅ Gesso can be used to cover nails, for example.
✅ Wait for the gesso to dry completely. Then sand with a small piece of fine-grit sandpaper. Gently sand by hand in small circles to remove the relief of the spalter strokes.
✅ Reapply another coat of gesso, sand again, etc., until you can no longer see the weave of the canvas or the ridges and roughness of the wood.
Gesso to create reliefs
Gesso can also be used to create relief on canvas. It’s a slightly thick coating that allows you to create some pretty cool effects that can then be worked on with acrylic paint.
To do this, use a knife.
✅ Apply the gesso to the canvas in thick strokes and create relief and patterns as you wish;
✅ It’s easy to create cool textures by tapping into the still-fresh gesso with a ball of aluminum foil, a sponge, plastic, etc ;
✅ Gesso solidifies as it dries: why not glue objects to it (feathers, beads, pieces of wood, fabric, etc.)?
✅ You can also add color pigments to your gesso to create relief and/or color effects.
Gesso for covering painted canvas
Do you have a previously painted picture that you don’t like and would like to reuse the frame to recreate a work over it?
Gesso applied in several coats will cover the old pattern.
How to cover a painting with gesso :
✅ Sanding the canvas ;
✅ Remove sanding dust with paper towels or a clean, dry cloth;
✅ Coat the entire surface with gesso using a spalter;
✅ Allow to dry.
Repeat this operation several times until the canvas is perfectly opaque, and no color from the previous paint is visible.
Experiment, with or without gesso, and see how your paintings turn out. When it comes to gesso, there are no “rules”. The main thing is to enjoy painting and be satisfied with the result!
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