DANIEL SMITH Acrylic Gesso is the perfect ground for painting with oils, alkyds and acrylics on absorbent surfaces such as canvas, paper, hardboard or plaster. Thick yet brush-able, heavily pigmented and permanent with dry, our lightfast and archival gesso (available in 3 shades) is designed to protect your substrates.

Our Acrylic Gesso is easy to use because it’s made with a high-grade acrylic emulsion that provides optimal flexibility and durability for excellent coverage. It’s even more flexible than any of the oil-based grounds, without the oil acids which tend to deteriorate cotton or linen canvas fibers.

Titanium White Gesso is opaque and made with the same pigment as our Titanium White Original Oils. See how well it covers this dark paper!

Transparent Gesso is great for mixed media because it allows the color or pattern of your substrate to show through your work, giving you even more creative options. In this image above, the left side of a wood panel is plain and untreated. Transparent Gesso is painted directly on the wood in the center, and then painted over a lacy white paper on top of the wood on the right.

The Iridescent Gold is made with the same pigment as Iridescent Gold Original Oils, along with mica and iron oxides. It has a gorgeous metallic sheen for a luxuriously luminant painting surface, which peeks out between spaces in your brushstrokes and gives transparent paints a golden glow. The mica will settle softly to the bottom of the jar over time, so be sure to mix it well to re-suspend the particles.

Gesso can be thinned with just a little clean water (no more than 10%) if desired. With a base of acrylic emulsion, gesso cleans up easily with soap and water. Brushes and palette knives should be cleaned immediately after use.