Hi everyone, I recently received a request from
Michelle of I Card Everyone on my
retreat blog post asking for some details on using Gesso so here they are.
This was my sample card for the technique at the retreat.
Gesso is a primer used on surfaces to allow paint to "stick". By painting a surface (wood, metal, plastic, washi tape etc) with gesso you can use watercolours or acrylic inks on them as it did with my washi tape card
here, it also acts as a resist as you can see above.
Gesso comes in clear, white, and black. It can be water down to mute background colours, and is the perfect way to use up old designer paper on your backgrounds and not have the bold colours show through.
Gesso Resist using stamps.
Use a sponge to cover the stamp with gesso and then stamp the card stock. Remember to clean your stamp immediately or the gesso will dry in the crevices and be very difficult to get out.
Let the gesso dry and either spray ink or blend the colour over the surface, use a baby wipe to remove the colour off the gesso. My stamp had some black ink on it which was picked up by the gesso. Oops. I don't clean my stamps very often 😊
Gesso through a stencil
I use a thicker consistency gesso (Liquitex) which has a little more body, it's perfect for both stamping and stencilling. It hold it's shape and and doesn't seep under the stencil too quickly.
Below is a card I did a few years ago using gesso to mute the background colour, and you can also check out my post this week over at
Magenta where I stamped an image and covered a piece of dictionary page with gesso.
I hope you picked up some tips and get to use your gesso in the future.
Card Recipe
Stamps: Magenta
Paper: Mixed media
Ink:
Accessories: Liquitex Gesso, stencils
Techniques: Gesso
