Does traditional RSG gesso adhere well to anything besides wood? I’m struggling to find a good solution for egg tempera painting at somewhat larger than traditional scales, about 30″ square. I’ve had very mixed results in terms of warping panels when applying traditional gesso to high grade plywood of various thicknesses (both cradled and not) at a scale of about 30″ square. I adhere a layer of cotton muslin to the face of plywood panels, also with RSG, to avoid checking, and also gesso both sides of the panels. My new fantasy is that if there really are adhesion issues with RSG gesso to materials like aluminum, fiberglass, etc what if linen or other fabric was glued to one of these materials? The fabric could enjoy an industrial bond or a BEVA bond to the ACM or whatever kind of stable support and then the traditional gesso could enjoy a bond to the openness of the fabric… thoughts? (I’ve found one fine art manufacturer who suggests the surface of their ACM panels will take hide glue just fine, even without the interlayer of fabric, but they don’t sell panels at a scale large enough for my purposes.) Thank you for thinking about this with me!
Thanks for the quick response George! Any advice on good methods for adhereing fabric to aluminum? BEVA seems common and I imagine acrylic mediums could work…
On another note. I’ve just done a test of traditional gesso on honeycomb fiberglass. It’s only been a couple of days but so far the adhesion seems decent. Have you experimented with fiberglass? I’m trying to get the manufactureres specs on it, will post later if I find them. Thanks! – Eli Bornowsky
Animal collagen glue will adhere to non-absorbent surfaces, and has been used for many years to “chip” glass as it contracts upon drying. We have been testing animal collagen glue on the coated surfaces of aluminum composite material (ACM) and found that the adhesion of tradiitonal gesso or chalk grounds applied directly to these surfaces is variable from poor to good. We have yet to find the reason for this variability, but adhering fabric to the panel first and then applyng a ground yielded better results.
