Method of Working with the Brush in Gesso
It is a mixture of whitening soaked in cold water till quite soft, glue or gelatine, boiled linseed oil, and a little resin, mixed well together to the consistency of cream. There is also a gesso used by frame-makers composed of whitening and parchment size.
Supposing it is desired to work a design on a panel of wood, the wood had best have a coat of shellac or varnish first. Then having determined your design lay on the paste with the point of a long-pointed sable brush—the kind known as a “rigger,” or small water-colour brush will answer—lightly dropping the gesso from the point of the brush or slowly dragging it, so that the gesso may flow from its point, as the design may require, and adding more of the paste where greater relief is required.
Filling for Picture-frame, in Gesso Duro
Designed by Walter Crane
Gesso Duro takes some days to dry, but dries, as its name implies, very hard. It can then be scraped down if necessary, and worked on again or touched on to any extent; and the peculiar quality of the relief given by brush work is, perhaps, best left untouched, or at least only added to, and not taken away from by scraping down, although a very fine finish could be obtained in this way, giving the work almost the look of ivory, though, I think, in that case, departing from its true character.
The frame margin given was worked in Gesso Duro, from a design of mine, by Harold Weeks.
The design for a bell-pull was modelled in gesso by Osmund Weeks, for reproduction in electro silver, the sea-horse being in copper.