Traditional Gesso

Before any tempera touched a panel in Jan Dickey's workshop, there was the ground — and the ground was traditional gesso. Not the white plastic in a tub at the art store (Jan's blunt verdict: acrylic gesso "just stole the name"), but the real thing: rabbit skin glue and chalk, the same recipe that carries six-hundred-year-old altarpieces.

Rabbit skin glue, the heart of it

Everything starts with the glue (RSG). The proportion is by volume: 1 part RSG pellets to 10 parts water. Let the pellets soak 1–3 hours — they absorb and swell, drinking the water.

Then heat it, and this is where most failures happen. Use a double boiler — never direct flame. The target is bath temperature: the jar should feel like a comfortable warm bath against your wrist, never scalding. Boiling destroys it. Heat breaks the collagen's polymer chains and the glue loses its adhesive strength. The double boiler gives indirect, even heat so you can't accidentally cook the collagen.

Storage and decay

Refrigerated, prepared glue keeps 2–3 weeks. Left out at room temperature too long, it putrefies — it is, after all, an animal collagen. Jan tells this one from personal experience: he left a jar of RSG in his own studio and forgot about it. The smell got so bad his professor refused to come in. Treat it like food.

Mixing the gesso

Combine the warm glue with chalk powder (calcium carbonate / whiting) at a ratio of roughly 1:1 to 2:1 chalk to glue. More chalk yields a thicker, more opaque ground. Add the chalk slowly to avoid trapping air bubbles, until the consistency reaches thick milk or light cream. You can also pass it through a fine-mesh strainer at this point to remove any lumps — I rarely bother, but perfectionists often do.

Chalk variations

• Calcium carbonate / whiting — the standard.
• Marble powder — smoother, with a more marble-like finish.
• French and Italian regional chalks — subtle differences in tone.
• Oyster shell powder — used in nihonga and related practices; chemically similar calcium carbonate.

Application

Two rules matter most. First, prime both sides of the panel: RSG shrinks as it dries, and coating only one side will warp the board. Lay the panel flat while drying for even shrinkage. Second, build in thin layers — brush a coat, let it dry, repeat, sanding lightly with fine sandpaper between each coat. The back needs just one coat of RSG and one coat of gesso. The front gets one coat of RSG, then two to three coats of gesso (or more for a very smooth finish). The result seals the wood's pores, neutralizes the wood's acids against the paint, and gives a stable, absorbent surface to paint into.

Jay's Studio Note

"Warm bath, not boiling" — I keep telling this to people. It's a bodily instruction. You test it on your wrist and you know right away. That one small check protects the whole batch.

The prime-both-sides rule surprised me more than I expected. I'd been thinking of the panel as passive, just sitting there. But it moves — it shrinks as the glue dries, and if you only coat one side, it pulls. Once you see it happen, you don't forget.

We've started gessoing in batches and leaving the panels flat for a few days. There's something about preparing a surface before you're allowed to use it — the waiting feels right.

References

• Jan Dickey, Tempera & Distemper Workshop, Material Memory Studio, Seoul, 7 June 2026. Jan Dickey is a New York-based painter, curator, and art writer. Jan Dickey at Material Memory Studio
• Cennino Cennini, Il Libro dell'Arte, c. 1400 — detailed instructions on gesso sottile and gesso grosso preparation for panel painting
• Kremer Pigmente — specialist supplier of rabbit skin glue and traditional gesso materials referenced in the workshop. kremer-pigmente.com