I went hustling off to Michaels yesterday, clutching my 50% off coupon fully intent on buying a gallon of Matte medium, only to discover they had only $9 small bottles. There were gallons of Gesso for $49 and in the back of the bottom shelf a wide mouthed gallon jug of it for $6.99 on sale. I asked the staff and they had no idea if there was a difference and it looked the same. I wanted the Matte Medium for ballasting cement and tree arbor sealing also for sealing my ceiling tile rock cliffs. Will the Gesso do the same? Roy
Gesso is basically a primer for surfaces to be painted. It could possibly be used to seal your “rock” faces.
Matte medium is a better sealer/adhesive.
Think of Mod Podge as super matte medium that adheres to a wide variety of surfaces (I use it as glue to stick paper to styrene).
WARNING! Gesso is NOT an alternative for matte medium. Gesso is a white primer used for priming canvas. It is however useful for sealing surfaces that is going to be painted.
Graffen, nice work on the M-K &Eastern RR
Thanks guys, I guess that great buy wasn’t as great as I thought but it will seal rock faces and tree arbors and the very wide mouthed gallon jug will be useful- I can just dip the tree arbors right in that jug. It looks like I’ll need another trip over to the mainland (I live on an island) to get the matte medium for the ballast work. Thanks again for the helpful replies. Roy
I think you could do all you need to do with a gallon of regular white Elmers.Its transpaerent clear once dried so will work with as a sealer. Elmers is water soluble even after drying so mistakes can be taken up by flooding with water and scrape up with a putty knife. Modge Podge is waterproof. Gesso is harder’n H##% when dry. It has marble dust in it which is really nice for drawing and painting as it has a nice “tooth” when dry. BILL