gesso

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What I do after the Gesso

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What I do after the Gesso

In this video, I demonstrate what I do after I’ve applied a couple of coats of Gesso. I use black and white Gesso so that my painting already has a variety of marks, effects and tonal values. My process is intuitive - I don’t have a plan, but rather decide and respond to the colours and paint effects that arrive through experimentation. There is a method that I use to avoid creating a mess which has no direction which could happen when painting in this explorative way.

Watch the video to see how I start my paintings with colour and line and make sure you watch to the end to see a surprise tip for getting the BEST results.

Avoid the Blank Canvas - Use Gesso to Paint

Avoid the Blank Canvas - Use Gesso to Paint

Starting a painting and making that first mark on a blank canvas can be daunting. In this video, I show you how to avoid this nervous starting point by using Gesso to create a beautiful surface instead of a flat blank canvas.

By painting with Gesso, applying it with a variety of tools, and allowing water to flow through the thick paint, you can build depth and subtlety into those first layers. Before you know it, you’ve started a beautiful and exciting painting and avoided the nervousness altogether.

Watch this video and alternate between Black and White Gesso to create depth and interest to your canvas. Using a variety of tools, from squeegee to comb, you can experiment and discover the effects you love as the foundation to your next painting.

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New Beginnings...

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New Beginnings...

I also really enjoyed letting loose with drawing and using dry media a lot more in my paintings when I was working on the large sized paintings. This added a playful looseness which I really liked and prevented me working in a straight-line towards finishing when after each painting session I would draw and scribble over the painting. Coming back into it the next day I would cover a lot of the drawing over but the little remnants that peeped through were really fun suggesting a naivety which I liked.

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10 Tips for Painting BIG

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10 Tips for Painting BIG

Recently I have started 4 new paintings. These babies are BIG!! Well, they’re the biggest paintings I‘ve ever done. Initially I was a little nervous about starting them as this was foreign territory. I tried not to dwell on the volume of expensive paint I was going to consume, so to quell that nagging fear I ordered another bucket of gesso. That would get me started. I bought myself a couple of wider bigger brushes and I bought a squeegee so I could move the paint around the canvas quickly with one swoop. I was concerned with economy & efficiency you see.