A sketchbook experiment with gesso & acrylic ink

There's a question I keep coming back to with grid art: Does the grid have to stay separate?

Usually, the answer is yes. Each taped section becomes its own little painting. But the tape is just tape. It doesn't actually make rules. So this time, I ignored it completely.

I prepped both pages with gesso, grabbed my acrylic inks, and just went for it. One big spread, no sections, no theme. Just colors moving across the paper and a piece of tissue paper I found in a shoebox. I wasn't sure it would work. That's usually how the best experiments start.

Materials:

• Sketchbook

• Washi tape or masking tape

• Gesso

• Acrylic ink (or acrylic paint)

• Tissue paper (optional, but try it)

• A willingness to not know what's going to happen

Instructions:

1. Tape your sketchbook spread into a grid
   But instead of treating each section as its own space, I left the tape down and painted across the whole thing.

2. Start with gesso on both pages
   This gives the ink something interesting to move on and unifies the surface. If you don't have gesso, you can use regular acrylic paint instead.

3. Add acrylic ink in loose blobs
   Just add some random blobs with the acrylic ink over the gesso. I used warm and cool colors, but just use the colors you're drawn to today.

4. Press the tissue
   Press it into the wet surface to see what kind of texture and drips it can create. Then subtly pull the tissue paper off the page, so you can see the movement of the paint appear on the spread.

5. Peel the tape
   When you peel the tape back (quietly and slowly), the sections reveal themselves. Different from each other, but somehow still belonging together.

A tip worth keeping:

Before you clean up, look at the tissue paper you pulled off the page.

That stained, smudged, accidentally beautiful paper? It's collage material. Glue it into your journal with matte medium, and it goes translucent. All those marks you couldn't make on purpose are suddenly visible underneath. The tape itself is worth saving, too, for your art journal.

Final Thoughts:

This experiment reminded me that the grid is a starting point, not a set of instructions. You can fill in each section separately, or treat the whole spread as one canvas.

There's no wrong way in.

What's Next?

Explore further

If you enjoyed this process, you might also like other blog posts where I explore similar techniques, materials, and ways of working, always focused on play, process, and creative freedom. If you're new to Grid Art, this framework might help you.

Try a variation

You can make a loose abstract painting, or even a landscape that breaks apart into sections when you peel the tape.

Reflect & continue

Take a moment to notice what surprised you during this process. What worked? What felt uncomfortable? What would you like to explore next?