Re: Is Acrylic gesso crappy?

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Re: Is Acrylic gesso crappy?

In Reply to: Is Acrylic gesso crappy? posted by Warren Betanko on 08/12/00 at 10:54 PM:

: If I paint with oil paint on acrylic gesso will it fall apart in a few years? Oil gets more and more brittle and acrylic stays flexible, I've heard.

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Warren,

It may not fall apart in a FEW years, but why not just use an oil primer for an oil paainting? Is acrylic "gesso" crappy?--Not for an acrylic painting. Paintings crack (most) for the same reason mud cracks- the surface layers dry and lose their flexibility while the underlayers remain moist, flexible and shifty for longer. Remember also that acrylic layers, especially thick ones can get very soft when warmed. If you use the acrylic gesso, paint with acrylics. Remember to avoid student grade acrylics ESPECIALLY for work that will receive any amount of sunlight. I once did a 7' x 12' painting on a barn door with only Liquitex BRAND acrylics but paint tubes from drastically different years and including some of the "BASICS" colors. The BASICS colors faded first and fast, now the more conventional Liquitex tube colors are starting to show signs of wear, and the oldest tube that i used, a bright orange is still very bright orange after six years of being outside in half a day of sunlight.

Just last week, however, i did use a "GESSOBORD" panel which is acrylic primed, for some illustration work. It is inexpensive and the priming layer is THIN and HARD and the piece does not have to be alive and well in a year. I did set it in the sun as an experiment but after ten miutes i thought better of it as it was convexing badly (that THIN layer of acrylic priming still got very flexible then).

***Try a "traditional" rabbit-skin-glue gesso or an oil primer such as lead white. and see if you feel the difference. Various and tested recipes for these can be found at the Cennini Forum where Rob Howard (knows his sh....stuff) moderates, which can be accessed through most of his posts both here and in the Egg Tempera forum.