Painting on Gesso BOARD

The beauty of painting on gesso is also its downfall. You have more control over it than yupo, as it's not affected much by fingerprints and oils. You can easily erase imperfections, even start over again, if you choose. However, you cannot glaze over things or make corrections without disturbing a considerable amount of paint.



Sketch and reference photo from Pixabay, a copyright free website.




Some people used the modeling paste to create mountains, trees, or ocean waves. I used the mountain for a demo. I had first formed mountain shapes from the modeling paste, with a little bit of sand added to the foremost mountain. First I used cerulean and cobalt blue to paint over the sky and tops of mountains. For my mountains I added in some burnt sienna to blues leaving some white at the base for snow. I left a white space to later put in some trees and flowers. On the bottom I used some greens and burnt siennas where I wanted some rocks. I painted in some pinks and greens where I was going to add some detail in the flowers and grasses. I let it dry.

Next I lifted the paint off the sky where I was going to add clouds. I lightened a few areas in the mountains and lifted a little more where the snow field at the mountain base would be.

For rocks, I lifted the high lights on the tops and darkened the shadows on the rocks. I used a green made from Pthalo Turquoise and a red and purple to make the dark green fir trees. I stippled some green foliage in between the reds to make it appear that they were red stalks of flowers.





To finish the painting I added some greens to the mountains. I put in a few more rocks in the foreground. I defined the flowers more by stippling in green foliage between flowers. Then I added some purple to the clouds.



There's a lot of push and pull with this type of painting. You remove some paint, you add some paint, and sometimes you have to start over again on an area. It forces you to paint loosely, and it can be a bit difficult for us glazers to get used to, but can also be very relaxing, as you can just play around with it.