Media Medley Blog

Every canvas meant for oil paints does best when gessoed. But it’s a job that this artist doesn’t much enjoy. So when I gesso, I do a whole batch at a time. This gives me a nice stock from which I can immediately pull a canvas and start painting when the spirit moves me to paint. JOY!

Gessoing ACEOs also has to be done, even if they are tricky little things. I’ve found the best way to proceed is to cut card board pieces into sizes that are a bit larger than an ACEO. I use an old CD case as template for the size. Once the cardboards are cut, they can be reused over and over. I then use a couple of small pieces of scotch tape rolled up and adhered to the cardboard. Then I stick the ACEO canvas/paper to the cardboard and gesso the whole batch at one time.

If the canvas paper is thin, it might curl a bit when first gessoed. I’ve found that if I wait a few minutes until the paper is no longer shiny wet, I can then stack the cardboards together and press a moderately heavy weight on them (when the gesso container in the image is full, I’ll use that as a weight). The canvases don’t stick, but they are straightened and flat when I pull them out for use the next day.

I paint an image onto the canvas paper while it’s still stuck to the cardboard. This allows me to handle and move the painting while painting and  move it to the drying location. No need for fingerprints on the painting unless you really can’t wait to test the wet paint!

When the painting is carefully removed from the cardboard, and the tape discarded from the back, what’s left is a clean and professional edge on the painting.

I hope you enjoyed this trick to treating ACEO canvases.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.