My favorite method of application is to paint it on with a very stiff bristled brush and either leave it with the brush texture or let it set for a few minutes before then gently smoothing it out a bit with a metal taping knife. It can be applied to your substrate with any tool you want. I haven’t ever been able to completely eliminate those IN the mixing container but the minute I start spreading or brushing it out onto my substrate those lumps smoosh right into the mixture and disappear. I like it a bit on the thicker side so that I can get texture more easily but you can absolutely create a thinner mixture for smoother texture (though too thin might be no better or different than just extra coats of straight gesso.) When you first mix it up, it will look like it has lots of teeny, tiny lumps of plaster in it. A good starting place might be 1:1 by volume (not by weight) and then adding more gesso if you want it thinner or more plaster if you want it thicker. :) By that I mean that there is literally no recommended ratio because it totally depends on how thick YOU want it to achieve the texture YOU want. The question I get most frequently when talking about this mixture is what ratio to use and this is where I really shine in my ability to answer without actually answering. It’s literally JUST plaster of Paris and gesso mixed together until it’s a thickness that you want. With this mixture, there is no water added. It gets really hard when it dries and does not reconstitute with water (like joint compound will do). Traditionally, plaster of Paris is mixed with water. There are certainly texture mediums that you can purchase at an art supply store - and they’re all great - but they are also usually much more expensive than this mixture. Until creating this mixture, I never knew of a reliable way to incorporate plaster of Paris in book arts - specifically on the pages of a book that would be bent and handled a lot. Mixing it with gesso gives the plaster better adhesion and flexibility while also maintaining the gorgeous toothy, porosity that I love so much about gesso and plaster both. Plaster of Paris is brittle, with no tensile strength (resistance to breaking when bent or pulled) so applying it to a flexible surface meant that it would immediately crack or break off if the surface was bent or flexed at all. I’ve worked with plaster of Paris and other products in the “plaster” category for years but never found a version that would allow it to be reliably applied to a flexible surface like paper or even stretched canvas. The fact that I can even think of plaster of Paris when considering working on paper is an indication of a new level of freedom I’ve reach in my creative process because of this mixture. Since I didn’t have a plan that made the thickness of the paper a deal breaker, I knew I could beef it up a bit with the plaster + gesso mix that I’ve been using in my work for a while so I set it aside until I was ready to make that mess. When it arrived, it was a scant 3/8 of an inch and much thinner and softer than I expected. The pictures suggest that it is thick with a stack of 50 measuring maybe an inch and a half to two inches when stacked. I admit that I was a bit disappointed when the paper arrived. a substrate to spread the medium on (paper, canvas, cradle board, wood, etc.) In this case, I used some inexpensive handmade paper that I purchased on Amazon. Plaster loves to stick to wood and that can be frustrating when mixing the medium. I recommend a flexible, plastic or glass or metal container. a tool to apply the medium with like a stuff bristled brush and/or a taping knife. In this case, I usually use white gesso but clear or tinted would work similarly. The only two ingredients that you need to make this texture medium are (linked): You certainly could leave it untouched after it has dried if you wanted but because it is significantly more porous than, say, paint and baking soda, you may want to seal it with something (such as matte medium or spray fixative) to keep it from taking on finger oils and dust. It’s a prepared surface on which you can then apply so many other media. It thickens it and gives it some texture but in this case, the end result isn’t usually planned to be a finished surface. It’s not completely unlike when you see DIYers add baking soda to paint. The first thing to know about this homemade texture medium is that it can be used on so many different surfaces and substrates.
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