Cutting Absorbency of Traditional GessoApproveRejectUn-ApproveSubscribeUn-Unsubscribe
Question asked 2019-09-12 07:37:23 ...
Most recent comment 2019-09-12 14:26:12
Grounds / Priming
When painting oil on top of a traditional chalk & glue ground, to cut the absorbency I generally recommend first applying a thin layer of shellac or rabbit skin glue on the gesso. Any other recommendations?
Thanks,
Koo Schadler
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Moderator Answer
(brian baade)
Koo, Shellac will certainly work although it introduces an alcohol
soluble size in addition to the water sensitivity inherent in chalk-glue ground
and true gesso (this is not a huge issue and is equally true of the b-72 isolating
layer that we have discussed here on MITRA.
When I a practicing painter and wanted to paint in oils on a
glue based ground, I would sometimes rub in a very thin application of a quick
drying alkyd medium. When applied thin enough and covered with oil paint, no
yellowing of the medium could be perceived.
I am not convinced that this was the perfect practice and it
was dependent on making sure that no more than the necessary amount was added
to the ground.
As a historical note on this subject, the Early Flemish oil
painted often coated their chalk-glue grounds with a few applications of animal
glue before beginning their underdrawing than then cover that with a
translucent layer of oil paint (usually light gray or pale peach. The glue made
the application of the oil layer. The oil preliminary layer is what the
Italians would call an imprimatura.
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