Cracked gesso effect.

[Not your average framer]

Cracked gesso is not a particularly difficult effect to acheive, basically you need something which shrinks as it dries, but below the surface remains only partly dry while the above this not quite dry the surface layer surface is drying and at the same time shrinking. Mixing up some flour and water past with some chalky emulsion paint usually will acheive this effect, as the flour and water paste takes longer to set when it is not exposed to the air. It looks quite good of exposed mount reveals. I have not tried it on wood mouldings as i am not really sure how well it adheres to wood and my suspicion is that pieces of the cracked finish may detach themselves and fall off from the wood moulding. It's a finish which does not hurts to look a bit aged, slightly discoloured and a bit grubby a well thinned down tranparent brown coating with a slightly off white washed finish on top which has been mostly sponged away tends to look favorably aged.

It's not a particularly quick and easy finish to do, so it works more easily on smaller areas, where less time and effort is needed. Years ago, this was done by using real gesso painted on to fabric and after drying the fabric was rolled up causing the gesso to crack and reveal a cracked surface, after this the fabric and the cracked gesso would be glued in to place on pacture frame mouldings, slips, or mounts. Generally this was quite time consuming and required considerable skill to get it right. This older technique is still practiced by some of the really classy up market specialist framers, but the rest of us usually take the easy way out and rely up on the top of the finish shrinking will the finish underneath has not yet set and permits the shrinking top of the finish to move enough as it shirks to crack to top of the finish. It's not particularly difficult to do on mount reveals and bevels. I've also seen it done as a base coat for gold painted slips, although I have never fancied down it myself as I think that it is probably not very easy to do.

[JFeig]

The method I learned was to mix corn starch to the formula than apply as normal. The trick was to use a heat gun over the drying surface and it will bring out the cracks like magic.

• cover the frame with torn paper in random pattern, with gel medium
  mix 2 pt whitting - 4 pt corn starch - 3 pt stock RSG
  apply gesso layers to frame and let dry
  spray with 50-50 water and alcohol
  apply heat with a hair dryer to achieve the desired effect
  seal with 2-3 layers shellac
  apply leaf or paint patina

[Not your average framer]

Hi Jerome,

You are doing it properly, I am just cheating a little. The chalky emulsion paint still can be made to crack and the flour gets raided from the kitchen, it's all very cheap and cheerful. I'm something of a member of the bucket chemistry school, you know it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Your ratios in the mix are probably a bit more precise than mine, I mix the flour and water separately and mix the resulting mix with approximately the same amount of chalky emulsion paint. It's not very scientific if it the consistency feels right to apply with a brush it sort of works. What's the alcohol and water for? I have never used that, is that to slow down the drying, while brushing it on and helping it to brush out evenly?

Starch paste is an old bookbinders trick used when stretching and gluing leather on to raised bands on the spine of a book. The paste is mixed 50/50 with PVA glue and the paste sloes down the rate at which the PVA glue will set the leather needs to get well wetted in order to be able to work it in place around the raised bands. It is necessary to keep working the leather with a bone folder so that the leather cannot shrink back to wards it's original size as it dries and that's what the starch paste does. It slows down the rate of setting for the PVA. Starch paste also causes PVA to set with a rough surface, so interesting for creating surface textures as well.
Mark.

[JFeig]

The water/alcohol mixture expands the gesso mixture a little and the hot air dryer forces the surface to dry (shrink faster) than the middle of the gesso. The added alcohol allows the water to absorb faster. forgot to add that the gesso is sanded after it is dried.

[Not your average framer]

I also have to sand it after it has dried as well. Not always easy on mountboard. I've never tried it on wood, I am not really convinged about the adhesion of my formula to wood. I've also tried various crackle glazes, but find them a bit disappointing. A lot of the modern stuff does not all that good when applied to the mount reveal and the mount bevel at the same time. I've only ever done the one double mount using this effect, I thought that it looked o.k. and I usually do quite well with things that look old, but not all things thatlook old seems to go down well with the customers and cracked gesso does not seem to create much interest.

There are certain pictures in a magazine called country living which show modern things with a little bit of and older twist. I am sure that most of the genuine older stuff never looked like any of this stuff, but it's this more modern look, with a psudo older look which looks of the trendy crowd, seem to be buying. I have been trying to make some stuff, with this modern looking older style. It does sell, but it's a little unpredictable in how easy it is to sell. Too many of these customers are looking for something other than what I have to offer and they seems to want something exactly like they have seen in this magazine. The interior design thing in this country has been becoming a really difficult market in recent times.

I have some friends who have been selling some of the trendy interior design stuff on line, but the bottom has been falling out of the market and most of these friends have moved on to other things right now and the general public seem to be doing their own interior design ideas themselves and they are impossible to please. I used to do some of the bits and pieces to order for my interior design friends, but they don't seem to have access to money paying customers anymore, so they don't need me to make up bits and pieces for them anymore. When I was too ill to make some of this stuff, I could have had the work, but now I am well enough to do it, it's all gone! Most difficult to understand what the market is doing!