Christie Renee Hawkins shows what gesso does: it seals a canvas so paint doesn't soak through. Use it to protect a fresh canvas before painting, or to revive old unfinished ones so you can paint over them without waste.
Hey, it's Christie with The Social Easel showing you how to use gesso. And basically what that means is you're covering the surface of the canvas so that the paint does not soak through. Gesso creates that barrier. But one of the other reasons I love gesso and why it's important to have is that you can use it to paint over old paintings that maybe you started and they just didn't turn out the way you wanted them to. And, uh, you don't want to waste that canvas. I have a stack of them that has been accumulating over the years of like ideas I played with and then it didn't work out and I shelved it. Well, I never took the time to go back and gesso those, and I had some time today and that is what I was doing. And I thought I'm going to show you guys how simple and easy this is. If you've got some canvases at home that you know you need to do that with, hopefully, uh, that little tip helps you.
