So you painted something on a stretched canvas, canvas board, masonite board, or a hunk of wood and you hate it. Man I can’t relate. It’s only happened to me about 500 times!
Don’t despair! You still have options!
I taught 5 classes in one night which meant I had 5 canvas panels of the same thing. So what am I going to with them? I’m too frugal (cheap) to throw them out or stack them in a corner. They can at least be good for practice if nothing else.
These were all relatively smooth, no globs of paint or raised bumpy strokes, but if they had had those things, I would have gotten out my sand paper and a wood block and sanded them gone, decimated, obliterated. You get the picture. Then I would have wiped the dust away and put a coat of colored gesso over it. Click HERE to see post on colored gesso.
I used Derivan Matisse Victorian Grey colored gesso for the above 5 canvas panels. What you see is one coat of the grey gesso and it really covered the rainbow paint under it pretty well. There are 2 of the panels that may need a second coat, but 3 of them are good to go. Besides, I’m not leaving the grey as a background. It will all have paint covering it, regardless of what I do.
I have 2 flavors of colored gesso, Victorian Grey and Terracotta although there are others. I bought these 2 colors because one is cool and one is warm.
When painting, acrylic paint evaporates as it dries and it can leave little white specks of a white canvas showing through when you’re done. I hate that, so I always put a coat of colored gesso on before I start. That way if the paint evaporates in the drying process, the only thing that will show through are tiny specks of grey or terracotta and they really won’t show.
If you’d like to purchase colored gesso, you can easily find it online at either Dick Blick Art supplies or Jerry’s Artarama. You can put colored gesso in the search box and it will come up.
I know you can cover over a painting once and possibly twice, but probably not more than that because there is just too much going on underneath for a painting to look right. But hey, that’s one more canvas to paint on you might have otherwise thrown away!
Waste not, want not!
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!.
Sharon
Click HERE to get my supply list.
Click HERE to receive my eBook on 3 Ways To Improve Your Art.