DIY Gesso Pages

Using an unusual ingredient which even our local Ace Hardware store has:

At several different places online, I kept running into things about DIY Gesso. In my latest junk journal, the one with the duct taped cover, I wanted to strengthen some of the brown paper pages with gesso or paint--or something. Brown paper can be very brittle, easily torn. I liked the wrinkly look I'd achieved, and also like the torn edges I've added, but brown paper needs more body before certain kinds of treatment. 

I already had used up all of my white gesso, unfortunately. I did not wish to track down a new bottle so late in the creative process. I did still have some chocolate brown gesso left, but applying one brown to another seemed a bad idea for my blue and green color choices.

The recipes for DIY gesso do vary widely, especially where the ratios are concerned. Mine started off pretty grainy, even a bit lumpy--sort of like extremely white, very bad pancake batter! LOL

So now I've added more white acrylic paint to my previous mixture, stirring away lumps. Here is how it looked on the page prior to my adding more Titanium White paint and smoothing the mixture.

Though it's a rough cut journal and those are wrinkled 

pages, I must say that it looks unusually bumpy!

The 2 acrylic paint colors (later applied using my fingers and some water for a thinned look) have stuck to ridges and bumps. I'm not sure yet what to do with these pages. Perhaps by next week, I will have the answer.

Hope everybody's enjoying their week!