Acrylic Gesso over old acrylic paintings

GMBurns2000 · #1 03-03-2012, 05:18 PM

First, sorry if there is a thread covering this already. The search function doesn't work that well here (or I'm incompetent) and I wasn't going to go through 1000 pages to find it. Also, in a quick search of the Info Kiosk for acrylics, I couldn't find this topic (I might also be blind, as well as incompetent).

So, I mostly paint with oils and use acrylic gesso as a primer. Of course, acrylic gesso over oil paintings is bad practice, but I was recently given some old canvases that were originally painted with acrylic. It seems common sense to me that if I sand down the old paintings and use acrylic gesso that I should be OK to paint over them. I was thinking of also wiping them down with a water / turpentine mix, too, before priming them, but I may not.

My question is basically if this is OK (sand with gesso and / or sand with wiping it and then with gesso), but also if anyone has any suggestions then that would be great to hear, too. Thanks for your replies!

Rick G · #2 03-03-2012, 05:55 PM

Short answer, yes.

Here's a more complete discussion from a previous thread on this topic. By the way, I've found that sometimes it's easier to use Google's search function to pop up old WetCanvas threads.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260392

mastermesh · #3 03-03-2012, 06:29 PM

Why destroy the previous owners artwork? Just seems like a bad thing to do.

Jackie339 · #4 03-03-2012, 07:41 PM

My advice is to cut them off the stretchers , save the paintings and Stretch new canvas on to them. You will save yourself a lot of work and the canvas won't be so stiff after all that gesso. That's what I do with my old bad paintings.

GMBurns2000 · #5 03-04-2012, 06:59 AM

Thanks for the advice on using google to search, I'll try that later.

Regarding the other user's art, he gave me the stuff for the purpose of painting over them.

I'm not going to be putting anything serious on them; it's just extra canvas.

I'll check out the other thread. Thanks!

**Charlie's Mum** · #6 03-04-2012, 03:56 PM

Rick's answer is also mine!

Google - definitely better than WC search at the moment.

Nothing wrong with painting over other stuff if it's not worth keeping (and some isn't!)

If you like texture, don't need to sand.

Don't even need to gesso if you think the colours would help - often adds to the richness

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