In oil painting, is liquid black the same as black gesso?

absolutley not! Liquid black is the color you are going to use for mixing other colors, or straight on the canvas as black in the actualy painting. Black Gesso is a primer. You will prepare your canvas by painting that on first (or white gesso). There are a lot of benefits to priming the canvas, you will be less likely to get cracks in your painting - in the years to come, your colors will be more true.


If you want to prime your canvas, you cannot use liquid black oil paint. It will take weeks if not a month or more to dry, and if it is not completley dry you will get it mixed in with your other paints- a big mess.


You also cannot use acrylic gesso as a primer for an oil painting. It sounds like it would follow the rule 'fat over lean', but remember, one is water based, you cant put that under oils. Especially because it have latex qualities to it.


So, if you are just looking for black oil paint stick with the liquid black I guess. Do these tubes of paint look misleading? If the tube that says black gesso looks like a paint maybe it is. Although I wonder, who in theirright minds would name a paint Gesso?In oil painting, is liquid black the same as black gesso?
It sounds like one of those gimics for a TV painter. Its just oil paint that youre paying extra for looser, weaker paint with solvent in it.





You ABSOLUTELY can use acrylic gesso to prime. All pre-stretched canvases are primed with acrylic. Has nothing to do with fat over lean. Oil based paint and mediums will rot unprimed canvas. Acrylic is the preferred fast, stable permanent and uniform barrier for linen or cotton canvas substrates. Oil based paints will stick to (dried) water based undercoats - whether gesso or full underpaintings in acrylic paints. They cannot be layered other than waterbased first, dry, then oil based only to the end.