Studio: international art (1.1893)

Notes on Gesso Work

laying on and modelling any design in gesso with a The modelling of the more raised smooth parts
brush, he will find the brush and the paste conspire is produced by gradually and lightly adding, or
together to favour the production of certain forms rather super-imposing,

in ornament—delicate branch and leaf and scroll while the gesso beneath is \
work, for instance, and dotted and linear border- fluid, fresh gesso—like a __r [fym^ J

kind of pate sur pate— ~:\ )

which quickly amalga- —
mates with the layer un-
derneath. In modelling —
the limbs of figures it is
best to emphasise the
main muscular masses,

isolating them somewhat ___

from each other, and, in--

building them up to the ;
desired relief, to allow for ~^ZI
the natural tendency of
the paste to soften its own ~Z

edges in running together. '-

So that a limb would be .
built up somewhat in the ^
way indicated in the X-
drawing (see illustration), ......

by successive layers of
gesso in distinct masses

floated over each other while moist, gradually
allowing their edges to overlap and run together.
Of course the success of the result depends not
design for a eell-pull only upon the nicety of touch, but also on the

ings, lines of hair and drapery arranged in patterns proper consistency of the gesso, which, if mixed
(see illustration). Such forms as these the brush too thin, would be likely to lose form and run out
charged with gesso almost naturally falls into, and, of bounds. Gesso, therefore, like the Valetudi-
indeed, leaf shapes may be considered almost as narian's gruel in one of Miss Austen's novels,
the reflection of the form of the brush itself. should be mixed "thin—but not too thin."