True Gesso Panels by ARPI

Materials for Making Panels

  • Hardboard cut-to-size

    We offer cut-to-size the same hardboard we use in our panels; Louisiana-Pacific Premium Untempered. Our choice of this board over the others on the market, most of them much cheaper, is detailed in an article "Which Hardboard is Best?" which we invite you to read. Most hardboard on the market is unsuitable for serious artistic use for various technical reasons. This article explains the method we followed to determine the best gesso-panel hardboard.

    According to our research, there are two boards which are clearly superior; Louisiana-Pacific's Premium Standard (Untempered) and Masonite Standard Duron. Both boards are specialty products used for critical applications. They are definitely more expensive than run-of-the-mill retail hardboards and much harder to source.

    Since finding these boards is difficult, we make cut-to-size, plain, 1/4" hardboard panels available to artists. We trim them to dimension, check them for a perfect surface, chamfer the edges and brace them if needed for those who wish to gesso their own panels. Although the cost of buying hardboard this way is certainly higher than hauling a no-name sheet home from the local lumberyard, it is inexpensive if compared, say, to artist-grade linen and stretcher-bars.

    Please refer to our Hardboard Pricing schedule for prices on raw panels.
  •  Calcium Carbonate

    Calcium carbonate is the traditional pigment of choice for true-gesso panels. Suspended in a collagen binder such as rabbitskin-glue, it makes the oldest type of painting primer still in use. True gesso has the perfect combination of absorbency, alkalinity and surfacing-effects for the egg-tempera medium. No modern paint chemistry has supplanted its balance of properties.

    In the old days, CaCO3 was obtained as marble-dust or slaked plaster. In modern times, fine-ground limestone is used and is called whiting, gypsum, chalk or even "French Rouge". There are hundreds of varieties available today for making anything from caulk to cosmetics. The pigment size can range from 150-micron mild abrasives to nano-particles of .07-micron for making plastic polymers.

    Primitive as it is, gesso is a paint and benefits from modern paint-engineering concepts. The form of CaCO3 that we offer is an improvement over the marble-dust commonly used today in pre-mix gesso powders. We use a high grade of ground limestone screened to a uniform particle size and tested for purity. Our pigment measures 2.4 microns average (quite fine) and tests as 98.6% pure calcium carbonate. It is a type preferred by gilders in the U.S. and France. We do not blend titanium white with it as this is not a traditional practice. We think it's the perfect gesso-panel pigment.

    We price this pigment lower than you will find whiting selling for, despite costing more as a raw material. We enclose a gesso recipe and recommendations for use with each package.

    Please see our Pigment Pricing schedule for prices on CaCO3.
  •  Rabbitskin Glue

    Rabbitskin glue is the binder in gesso that imparts many of its characteristic benefits for egg-tempera as well as for gilding. There has always been a lot of mumbo-jumbo surrounding the use and preparation of this material and recipes vary widely or are jealously protected. Old handbooks say to boil parchment clippings and test adhesive strength by patting glue between the hands. Even Ralph Mayer resorts to recommending we stick a finger into its gel to 'test' it.

    Simply put, rabbitskin glue is one of many purified animal-protein products derived from rendering the hide, hooves or bone. It is quite purified as compared to carpenter's 'horse-hide' glue but somewhat less so compared to gelatin made from calf parts. Gelatin is usually weaker in strength than rabbitskin glue but can be formulated to the same level. In this strength, gilders find gelatin can yield a very good gesso with good burnish properties, but of course so does rabbitskin glue. For panels, we stick to the old ways and rabbitskin glue, partly since there is no study that settles the question scientifically.

    The one thing we knew we could do to bring some order to all this was to find a rabbitskin glue that was tested by its maker to consistent standards. This is not the case with most glues found on the market. We've seen "rabbit-hide" glue that contained little rabbit, or French and German glues for which no specs are available. We've seen rabbitskin glue that doesn't completely dissolve no matter how hot you get it. The glue we use and sell is pure rabbit collagen and is tested to conform to a 450-gram-strength standard. This means that each time we make gesso, we know it will come out the same, year in and year out.

    Our glue requires only minimal soaking and dissolves quickly and completely at low heat. Once soaked it does not need to be 'cooked' in a double-boiler but simply placed one-container-inside-another in a warm-water bath. Our glue is pale and translucent and free of foreign matter. As a bonus, we think our price is lower than any you will find elsewhere. Instructions for use come with each package.

    Please see our Glue Pricing schedule for prices on rabbitskin glue.

 
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