Collage with gesso

Use the gesso or chalk paint to organise shapes, block out areas you don’t want, and to give you a nice ground to add colour to or to draw on.

When adding collage materials add them to wet gesso and paint over the edges to hide the joins.

Leave time for the work to dry before adding colour washes and drawing, at this point you might also sand areas to soften the image or the edges of the paper.

Take time to arrange any collage materials before sticking them into the gesso.

So this series shows why it might be worth having a plan, and knowing when to stop.

Trying out collage shapes.

Back ground colour is absorbed differently by different surfaces the colour is darker on soft Japanese paper than on the gesso.

More gesso to try and organise the composition

Same mistake again colour too dark over the soft paper. One reaason to layer background colour before starting .

Another layer of gesso to try and sort out the colour.

Oops thought I’d go darker!

Bit of wiping might have helped except the paper lifted off……..

Waiting for it to dry while I think again.

By now this would have been stuck into the back of a drawer or a sketch book, however thought I should keep trying for a bit…

More gesso to cover up the loose paper and give me a base to draw on and some pen and ink drawing.

Resorted to sticking a dry point printed version of the same subject on top.

Cropping the image often helps , using your phone as a viewfinder or taking a picture and zooming in can all help in the planning stages.

I wouldn’t normally fight so hard to keep going, but I hope this sequence shows there is no need to bin things as soon as they go wrong, although some times that is the only sensible soloution. Also looking back there are several points along the way where I could have made it work, if I’d taken my time!

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