Look at these goodies I received!

Remember my post about my Gesso Woes? I told you in subsequent posts about being contacted by a rep from Liquitex, apologizing for the problem and informing me they would be sending me some free replacement gesso. I also told you about meeting the rep at the NAEA convention vendor area, and even posted a photo of us together.

Well Friday a package arrived in my classroom, and the photo above shows what was in it!!!! Not one, but two bottles of gesso! I opened one up and tried it out and it is PERFECT. No rubbery lump this time, but rather a perfect consistency gesso with excellent coverage.

And if that wasn't enough, the package also included a sample set of colors of their new acrylic ink, which I tried out at the conference and loved. The inks, including metallics, are fabulous, and I think I am going to be very stingy and use these 6 little bottles of brilliantly colored ink myself. Hooray for Liquitex, and THANK YOU for following through and caring about the satisfaction of your customers. I will definitely continue to use Liquitex products.

Unexpected.....

Upside down trees at Mass MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) - wish I had a photo of them in bloom!

This post has nothing to do with upside down trees or a yellow moose on top of a building, but it is about an unexpected nice thing that happened as a result of a blog post. Read on...

After my whole gesso woes 'saga' (which got more comments than practically anything else I've ever posted; go figure), I had moved on. Over and done. I received the Rheotech gesso I ordered in the end and it works just fine. My 5th graders are merrily gesso-ing their cats and they are lookin' good. A few even started painting (wait till you see the lime green kitty!)

SO - I was surprised to get two emails (related to my gesso posts) in the past week. The first was from a marketing specialist from School Specialty, responding to the gesso problems I reported on this blog. While I had filled out a customer service survey regarding my shipment(s) of gesso, it was the blog post that she was responding to.

She in turn reported my gesso problem to Liquitex, and a rep responded to me directly via email. There had indeed been a defective batch of gesso, and I was one of the unlucky recipients. While I didn't request it, I am being sent some complimentary gesso as a replacement. I am thrilled. This kind of follow-up never would have happened if I hadn't told you all about my gesso on this blog. Who would have thought that these companies are reading what we write? A big surprise, at least to me, for sure!!

He (the Liquitex rep) invited me to chat further with him at the NAEA conference in March (and I definitely will) and even complimented me on the blog. Such a nice end to a busy week at school!

And now I'm off for a busy week's vacation - a couple of days in NYC for fun, and a couple of days in Boston to visit my 'baby' (who at 23 isn't much of a baby I guess), and a couple of days at home to do laundry and clean the house. But I'll still be around in bloggy-land, too.

Concluding the Gesso Saga

Finally!! The Rheotech Gesso arrived today and is creamy textured, bright white, and has good coverage - just what I wanted. I'm totally sold on the product. Yippee!

But - just to end the saga properly, after 2 deliveries of solid rubberized Liquitex Gesso and one shipment containing the wrong material completely, they finally figured it out and sent me the Rheotech. But I had to laugh. When I opened the carton, it was a good thing the gesso containers had been sealed in a zip-enclosure plastic bag, because one of the containers did not have its cover on straight and it was leaking, as you can see in the photo. Luckily the stuff inside was OK to use, because I don't dare call School Specialty AGAIN!!!!

Gesso Woes

I've been having gesso problems. I use gesso with my elementary students to prime papier-mache projects. It blocks out the newspaper print, provides some additional strength to the structure, and also provides a nice painting surface.

I'd been using this stuff from Nasco for umpteen years:

But last spring, I opened up my container after not using it for a couple of months and what was left was all ORANGE (and didn't smell good either). So I called the company, and they replaced it. The new bucket was opened and used toward the end of the school year, but we didn't use it up. I went to use it this fall, and again... ORANGE. So I threw it out.

Because I was worried about a repeat of this problem, I ordered something else. Our district wants us to order from School Specialty, so I ordered this:

I opened it to prime my Laurel Burch papier-mache cat prototype, and it was disappointing. It would probably take 3 or 4 coats to cover the newspaper print, so it's not practical for our use. We need to get the priming done in one session. I can't think of a possible good use for this stuff.

So I ordered this:

In the catalog it was shown in a bucket, but it arrived in a bottle, like the Sax one in the previous photo. So I opened the bottle up and stuck my finger in, hoping to see its opacity. But what I found was a solid rubbery lump. EEK. The whole bottle!!! I called School Specialty and they sent me a replacement immediately. It came right away, and so I opened it immediately. Here's what it looked like after I cut the bottle in 1/2.

Yes, the top half of the bottle was another solid rubbery lump. The bottom half is like a thick rubbery spackle. It can be smeared onto a surface with my hands, but it won't spread with a brush at all; it is on it's way to being another rubbery lump.

I called yet again and they offered something different for replacement. But most of the gesso was way pricier than the stuff I'd ordered, so the only thing I could find at the cost I'd had approved was this: Rheotech Gesso. It's listed as 'economy' so I hope it will have some density and coverage. We shall see.

Do you use gesso at school? What kind do you prefer? Have you ever had spoilage problems?