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Making Gesso - RSG & Whiting
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Message
Posted
I have Rabbit Skin glue and successfully made up a 12:1 mix. Having read the article on Jacksons Blog - "RABBIT SKIN GLUE: PREPARATION, USES AND ALTERNATIVES" from April 2013, I decided to make up some Gesso using whiting and the remaining RSG. However, I'm confused by the different recipes mentioned on the Jacksons website. There is a recipe in the description of the Whiting product - 25% whiting, 25% rabbit skin glue and 50% water. Unfortunately, it doesn't mention whether the rabbit skin glue component is a 12:1 mix or just the granules. It would be helpful to know which, since my attempt at using this recipe, with 12:1 mix, ended up looking like jelly and unusable as gesso.
The recipe in the blog article calls for adding to the 12:1 RSG mixture a volume of whiting 1.5 times that of the RSG. I assume the whiting is added as powder, going by the description of how it is added. However, there is no mention of adding any additional water. From the result of the first recipe attempt, above, I am loathe to try this recipe as it sounds like it should end up in an even stiffer mixture rather than something I should "...stir with a wet brush...".
Is there a 'standard' recipe (that works)? Or, is there a chunk of the described process missing?
Posted
I can’t imagine that there’s anyone currently on this forum that’s ever made their own gesso Ron, that certainly includes myself.
It can be a messy process and is readily available to buy at no great cost.
However, I admire you for giving it a go!
I would suggest that you contact Jackson’s, they are the experts on all things technical, and I’m sure that they will clarify and explain any issues that you have relating to their blog.
Posted
Lol….oh Alan I read Ron’s post earlier on and thought exactly the same, sorry Ron. But what it has made me do is wonder about all the animal products used in art materials and did look up gesso and yes it has rabbit skin glue included. I not a proper vegetarian in the usual sense I just don’t eat red meat , I see the animals on a daily basis and don’t always like what I see .
I wonder if there are, any animal free products i the art world. Sable I know , squirrel yes. And now rabbit skin glue. May be someone could invent a veggie glue to go in gesso…tongue in cheek.
Posted
I've made gesso. I was experimenting with encaustic and was amazed at the cost of encaustic gesso so made it myself. The glue is one part granules to 20 parts water by weight. Then the gesso is 1 part wet glue to one part of whiting or other dry stuff again by weight. Dry stuff can be all whiting, whiting plus dry pigment or in my case for encaustic, whiting plus pigment plus calcium carbonate. I was using on rigid panels. I've no idea if this would be flexible and suitable for canvas.
Posted
Rabbit-skin glue is a problematic product - a pain to make gesso with it, though there are recipes online, and it's also inferior to plain acrylic priming - with an optional layer on top of a lead white oil paint (Foundation White) which I suspect very few of us use.
I'm reluctant to steer anyone towards recipes, because it's not a product I'd recommend anyone to use (though in the past of course, just about all oil painters would have done) - but I'll have a trawl through my library later on, and reproduce any advice I can find. In any event, if I were going to use it (and I won't, because I'm too lazy) I'd prefer to use it on rigid panels. I think Collette's advice, from what I can remember, is pretty good - and as she's actually DONE it, probably the best you'll get.
Edited
by Robert Jones, NAPA
Posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVSVHe5ZZO0
This is a short film - with an incredibly irritating 'musical' sound-track which sounds like 'bar-mitzvah' on a loop: I should turn that down - which does contain a good and short demonstration of making gesso.
Life is, however, in my jaundiced view - just too damn' short to go to this sort of trouble for a largely out-dated method of priming.
Posted
OK, one more - nothing like overdoing it, eh?
This from Sir Alfred East RA, from his book Landscape Painting, published in 1902. "First you strain the best linen sail-cloth of moderately fine texture, then give it two coats of thin size. It is advisable afterwards to sterilise the size with a wash of a solution of formalin. This prevents the formation of fungi by the action of the atmosphere on the size, and so prevents the eventual scaling of the paint. The ground preparation which I use is the finest china clay, thoroughly dried in an oven, and the best white-lead, mixed with bleached linseed oil and spirits of turpentine, and a little copal varnish. If you want an absorbent surface, add a spoonful or two of water."
He goes on to say that the canvas so prepared should not be painted on for at least 6 months, advises several coats, and says the canvas should then be exposed to the light, in view of the tendency of while lead to discolour in the dark.
The "size" - made with rabbit-skin glue - is just the first stage, then. And by the way, you can't get genuine copal varnish any more. So - not a process I shall be following.
Posted
Think I’ll go back to using the whiting for chalk paint and stop being so tight and buy some more gesso. It does tend to be more expensive here in Australia, especially in regional areas.
By the way, Robert, Langridge produce a Copal resin here but I’m not about to open another can of worms, eh!
Posted
It would appear to be synthesized copal resin - I couldn't find a copal varnish presently available, but then there are far better products available today. I have a VERY small quantity of genuine copal oil: don't know why I keep it, because it does darken over time - there may be a few circumstances in which that didn't matter much; I may try to open the stickily-gummed bottle so I can use a drop or two of it in inconspicuous places: just being a little devil, basically.....
On the whole, though - most of these additives, mediums, solvents are things we could do without; most of the time I use Linseed oil, and occasionally a bit of stand oil, and nothing else. If nothing else, it prevents a lot of calculation on the fat-over-lean front, which anyway is of less relevance to those painters who work alla-prima, or more or less alla-prima. Fat over lean does matter, though, if you paint in layers. But these are deeper waters.
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