Liquitex - Professional Clear Gesso Surface Prep Medium

(image from Amazon)

Official Product Highlights

• Professional-grade clear gesso - seals and primes surfaces while adding "tooth" (texture for color adhesion) without obscuring the background.
• Dries transparent to semi-transparent (depending on thickness), waterproof, and non-yellowing.
• Ideal for pastels, oil pastels, wax crayons, graphite, and charcoal - provides excellent tooth for dry media.
• Can be tinted - mix with Liquitex Soft Body acrylic colors to create custom-colored grounds while maintaining transparency.
• Works on multiple surfaces - canvas, paper, wood, metal, or any clean, porous, non-oily surface.
• Lightweight, non-toxic - conforms to ASTM D4236, safe for educational use.
• Typically requires only one coat for effective surface preparation.

Additional Specs

Best Uses

• Priming canvas, paper, wood, or metal without covering existing drawings or markings
• Creating a textured base for pastels, charcoal, or graphite on slick surfaces
• Tinting with acrylic color for custom transparent grounds
• Preparing surfaces for paint-by-number (improves paint adhesion and reduces bleed-through, per user reviews)
• Mixed media and collage work where the background needs to remain visible

Overall Strengths & Weaknesses

Rating: ★★★☆☆

What works well

• Content.

What doesn't

• Content.

Tips

• Content.