The one thing I hate about my job...

I'm waiting on a couple of canvases to dry their umpteenth coat of gesso right now. Ever notice how there's one part of every job that its worker hates doing, even if they love love love love their job? My current "if I weren't an artist..." profession is whatever job it is that Rachel Zoe does. The personal stylist who has every designer, celebrity, department store buyer and vintage store manager wrapped around her finger. I'm sure there's one part of her job that she hates. I'm guessing it's the constant feeling of starving for her, but for me, it's a task that even I don't understand why I loathe it so much.

Priming. Gesso. Acrylic white blobbing. I hate it.

Let me explain: Raw canvas is basically a cotton or linen weave. It's generally unbleached and comes in a weight that indicates how tightly the fibers are woven - think thread count. When you buy it in bulk, it's about $3 for a square yard. The bars that make the frame are $2-$4 each, and the gesso that goes on it is about $2. So that's about $15 for a canvas that I stretch myself. Sound expensive? Well, the pre-stretched, pre-primed canvases are about $35 for the same size, and the frame and canvas are generally inferior and STILL require another coat of gesso or so. For a $20 savings, yeah, I stretch my own. But when it's stretched, you have to prime it with a bajillion coats of gesso so that oil paints rest on, rather than soaking into, the surface of the canvas. Before you can even START painting, you're painting a proverbial polar bear in a snowstorm. Three or four times. Sanding in between. Dog hair is impossible to remove without a whole other coat of gesso. Since you need to gesso all the way to the back of the stretcher bars, you're inevitably going to get it all over yourself. It's entirely the reason I don't prime in oil - I'd never be clean, EVER. It SUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKS.

If I ever get an intern or an assistant, they're gessoing ALL DAY.