Painting is a fantastic pastime. It helps expand the mind, and exercise the hands, and is a great way to expand and grow creativity. Painting with oil paints is a special challenge that not all artists choose to take part in or dabble with. Deciding to scrap an oil painting can be difficult, but can you gesso over an oil painting and start over? While some artists say you can I will say you can’t based on long term experience and having to deal with artworks that have started to peel over the years. Let me explain further.
Can You Gesso Over an Oil Painting to Cover it Up?
Oil paint is notoriously difficult to work with, especially for beginners that might not know the ins and outs of working with this medium and how to cover it up if you decide you are unhappy with the result. You cannot simply gesso over an oil painting if you decide to start over. The reason is that oil paints are very durable and long-lasting; this means that eventually the gesso or whatever else you try to cover the oil paint with will peel off and expose the oil painting beneath.
What is Gesso, and Why Won’t it Work?
Gesso is much like acrylic white paint that you might use to paint over an acrylic painting. It is a bit thinner than white paint and does dry hard to prime the surface. It is ideal for starting a canvas or for painting over things like pencil marks, outlines, watercolor, and even acrylic paint that is not put on too thick.
It is not ideal for oil paint as the layer of gesso you would need to use would have to be very thick, and you would have to do multiple layers to cover the colors that were present on the canvas. Gesso might be good for covering smaller areas or very small mistakes, but it is not ideal for a whole canvas reset.
How to Cover an Oil Painting and Start Over?
There are a few ways that you can reset or restart on an oil canvas. The first is if the canvas is not dried down. Oil paint takes up to 24 hours to fully dry if you are using a thinner layer of oil paint. Oil paint does not dry like normal paint. With normal paint, it simply dries as the water in the paint dries up and evaporates.
The oil acts differently. With oil, it has to go through a curing process to be fully set. The oil has to oxidize and cure as a reaction to the air in the room. Often, this type of paint dries from the top down, this means that the outer layers of the oil paint are going to dry before the inner layers have a chance to dry and cure.
If you have paint that is very thick or that is not uniform thickness, some areas of the painting might be dry and cured while other parts of the painting might still be tacky and wet. If you have an oil painting that is not dry and that is still fully wet or mostly wet, you can scrape the canvas and remove as much of the paint as possible. This may be enough to start over and continue your work, if it is not, there is another option. You may also be able to use turpentine to gently wipe away paint that has not dried yet and that you want to remove.
For those paintings that are fully dry or that are mostly dry, the best way to reset your canvas so that you can use them again is to use oil paint to cover the existing oil paint. The only medium that is going to cover the oil paint that is already present is more oil paint. You do have two options with painting over your oil painting.
First, with paintings that need a white base, you need to use white to go over the painting that you messed up. You can mix the oil paint with a quick drying medium like liquin, cold wax, and more to help make the drying process a bit faster, or you can go with straight oil paint. You can pick off very thick areas if you have any that might make repainting difficult or that might just stand out. If you have a painting that you can do on a black background, you can also use black oil paint to cover the old painting.
How to Cover an Oil Canvas
The first thing that you need to do when you do decide to cover an oil painting is to decide if you want to cover the entire canvas and start over, or if you just want to pick and choose areas that you want to cover. You can choose to cover the entire canvas and start over, or you can simply cover a portion of the painting and re-imagine that area.
If you want to only cover a portion of the painting, use your oil paint to cover that area and start over. If you want to cover the entire canvas, take the time to work slowly and in sections to help cover the canvas fully and ensure that you get an even coating.
Painting over an oil painting can be intimidating. It does not have to be impossible, with the right materials and patience, you can paint over any mistakes that you might have made or the entire canvas. After allowing proper drying time you can start over and get back to creating.
Can You Gesso Over An Oil Painting To Resurface It – Wrap up!
So, can you gesso over an oil painting? While the answer is technically yes, it’s not recommended. Gesso will not adhere to the paint and may cause the original paint to flake off down the road. If you decide to cover your oil painting with gesso anyway, be prepared for a lot of work sanding and priming until the surface is completely smooth. There are other methods for covering an oil painting that are much easier and less time-consuming. If you have an oil painting that you want to start over from scratch. Thanks for following along and feel free to share this post with your artist friends!
