Saint gesso - Finnabair Ambassador spotlight

There's a new blog series starting at Finnabair's blog. It's called Brand Ambassadors' Spotlight. Each month one of the Brand Ambassadors of Finnabair will choose a color, a theme, a product or something else as a focus. Then a couple of Ambassadors will create based on that focus to show you how to be inspired and share interesting techniques and ideas.

The topic of the first spotlight is gesso and the host is Tusia Lech. I think that she chose a perfect medium to start with! It's a wonderful primer but you can use it to so many ways! Just take a look at other Ambassadors' projects in the original post. You can see the original post here (link).

Gesso was my gateway medium to mixed media. I still remember my first little gesso jar, I guess it was about 50 ml and I used it mainly to white splashes. But then one afternoon, about nine years ago everything changed. I realized that I could use mediums with a heavier hand as “it’s only paper”. I was mainly doing scrapbook layouts then and the thought hit me. If I ruin the paper with mediums, the memories are still preserved in my head and the photo is one of the last things I add. So, I decided to lose fear and went for it! I’m still continuing on the same road. 

As you know, gesso is so much more than just white splashes. Naturally, it’s good for that, too, but you can conjure up different things with it. Originally, it’s a primer, used to make a surface for the painting preventing the colorants being absorbed into the canvas and turning the surface unicolor and ideal for paints to get a grip. Because most gessos nowadays are acrylic based and they rather stick to the surface than absorb into it, you can even create texture and relief layers with it. 

For this project I used gesso as the primer, as I was working on wood, but I also transferred the lady’s face using white gesso. It’s similar to gel medium transfer, just another kind of medium for it. First you need to paint a layer of gesso, add the laser printed image on top printed side down and then smooth the image to gesso. Then comes the tedious time to let the gesso dry thoroughly and after that you can rub the paper away using water and your fingers. I also used gesso on top of the embellishments. Some I treated more heavily, turning the piece into white, priming it with gesso, to others I only added some dry brushed hints of white. The raised floral pattern on the sides of the piece are also done using gesso.

My inspiration to the colors and patterns in the project was partly icons, the religious pieces of art, and a mosaic of Theodora, an empress of Eastern Roman Empire. The mosaic in question is from basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. I first saw the photo of the mosaic in my history book a long time ago, but its strong visual form has since been stored in my brain.

Thank you for stopping by today! I wish my project has inspired you to work with gesso!

Materials from Finnabair: 

Art Basics Heavy Gesso White

Art Basics Soft Gloss Gel 

Art Basics 3D Gloss Gel

Art Alchemy Liquid acrylic paint Deep Turquoise, Ultramarine, Avocado Green, Burnt Sienna 

Art Alchemy Metallique wax Vintage Gold

Mechanicals Woodland Leaves

Mechanicals Metal Lotuses 

Mechanicals Flowers 

Mechanicals Roses

Mechanicals Numbers

Mechanicals Mini Numbers 

Passiflora stencil

Fairy Garden mould

Gothic Book clear stamp

Materials: Prima Marketing, Sinelli