Here are three globes primed for painting:
When I discovered that gesso binds to plastic, I was very excited. I am experienced with painting acrylic on gesso, so by priming with gesso I can use non-toxic paint which is a big deal for me.
So what is gesso? It's essentially thin paintable glue mixed with white chalk or gypsum. It dries to a hard matte surface that is ideal for acrylic paint. Gesso is white, but it can be purchased in colours or tinted by mixing in the acrylic paint of your choice. I like white because it will make the colours I paint over top of it bright.
It took around a day to prime these globes. I made several mistakes as I did this. Perhaps the biggest mistake was to prime the globes before putting on the continents. I plan on making the continents out of modelling clay. If I had attached the continents first then I could have primed the whole thing...? Well, maybe not, since sanding the continents would be difficult and if they fell off anyways I'd be stuck re-priming the broken parts.
Another mistake was using masking tape to cover the coin slot (these globes were originally banks). The tape was thin and it allowed itself to be primed with gesso, which was what I wanted, but as the gesso dried the paint sucked up some of the moisture and wrinkled.
Finally, cheap globes make for cheap art. There's a big seam in the plastic around the equator of the globe; you can see that in the photo above on the globe to the farthest right. I painted six layers of gesso over top to try to smooth the seam, and it helped a little. I should have taken another day to do six more layers.
After the gesso was completely dry, I used 100, 300, 600, and 800 grit sandpapers to grind out the impurities in the surface of the gesso and to make it smooth. On a religious icon painted on a flat board, you can allow the gesso to dry flat. On a globe, there are no flat surfaces, so the gesso tends to creep towards gravity as it dries, making ridges. More sanding fun there.
In the picture above, I point to some of the ridges in the gesso. I could have added more coats of primer, but I think I will simply drop a continent on that spot to cover it.
Speaking of continents, my next step is to draw on the globe to block out where the continents will go. I'll save fabricating the continents for another day as company is coming over to visit and I doubt they want to watch me swear at my art project.
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