There’s so much to learn when you’re slinging paint and pencil, so here’s the eleventh installment in my monthly segment, Muddy Colors: Art Tip of the Month with Jeff Miracola. Each of my short videos will share a handy tip to help you create magnificent art.
My art tip this month is: Do-It-Yourself Gesso Boards
Buying pre-gessoed hardboard painting surfaces is a great convenience, but you pay a hefty price for it. In this video I show you how you can create your own gessoed hardboard painting surfaces at a huge savings.
Most lumber/home improvement stores will cut the sheets for you, for a nominal fee (usually a buck or so), if you don’t have the tools, or can’t afford them (like me).
They will, but you gotta be careful doing this as some hardware stores will not do precision cutting for you. Meaning they will not always get your exact measurements correct. I have tried this many times at different places and there is ALWAYS some employee that cuts something a quarter inch too short or too long. Very frustrating. So, if you want something done right, do it yourself 🙂
I keep running into the problem that one end will wind up being 1/4″ narrower than the other. How the hell do you cut a trapezoid when I wanted a rectangle, dude????
haha. Yep Eric. Very frustrating. I recently did a painting for someone and had an employee at the hardware store cut the masonite for me. I didn’t discover until after the painting was done that it was about half an inch longer on one side of the painting than it was supposed to be. So the painting did not fit in the client’s frame. So embarrassing. It never dawned on me to check that they cut the board properly because well, how do you screw that up when I tell you the dimensions three times? Never again. I will cut all my own boards from now on. Lesson learned.
Thanks for another great video! Ending up with boards prepared exactly how one likes them, adds a lot to the painting experience. Nice!
Yep, agreed. Being able to tailor make the painting surface to my liking makes all the difference. It’s a bonus that I can also do that and save tons of money in the process 🙂
Thanks for the video Jeff! You almost make it look like fun. And it’s definitely a financial win.
Put on some hearing protection as well as those goggles!
You can always have the 4×8 sheet cut-down into 2 or 3 smaller sheets so the fit in your car or SUV. Then do the final cutting and trimming at home. Plus if they cut the panel inaccurately, you can trim to size with just a little waste. And a few small odd-sized scrap pieces of hardboard will vome in handy eventually…
So I know you said a 4′ x 8′ sheet, but what thickness of this sheet is ideal for a painting surface? Thank you so much for this video. As artists, it is so important to be able to find affordable materials!
Where did the make your own gesso board vid go?