Working w/ Gesso

I’ve recently been selling some postcard sized hanging collage pieces at a wonderful shop in Mt. Sterling KY called Finders Keepers Market.

For these I’ve used a postcard as a base and covered front and back with papers and then collage over top using different mediums.

Here’s an example of a couple of pieces I did using white gesso. Gesso is usually used as a base coat, if you need to completely paint over something that might show through your layers of paint then a coat of gesso first works as a good base coat so you don’t need quite so many coats of paint later. But it also works as a great background technique. Here I used it over old music sheets and old book pages, I tore the papers and adhered them, then took a very small amount of gesso on a foam brush and rubbed over certain areas, it’s almost a dry brush technique. It’s really easy and makes a wonderful background!

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