Welcome back…I hope you had a good time playing around with creating gesso textures after last week’s post. Today I’m going to show you how to create your own unique paper using a variety of methods; including some of the textures from last week.

When I was still a paper scrapbooker, I could spend hours figuring out different ways to add interest to my layouts. I would print on vellum and lay it over photos. Paint, gesso, “Stickles”, alcohol ink and stitches found their way into my layouts in my search for depth and texture.

When I discovered digital scrapbooking, I was amazed at the things I could do that weren’t available to me before! But I still wanted to use some of the beloved techniques I had discovered as a paper scrapper. I eventually learned how to digitally replicate some of the “old-fashioned”, mixed media techniques using pixels instead of tactile mediums. Namely gesso and alcohol ink.

With digital gesso papers, you can create beautiful, textured backdrops that make your scrapbook pages more unique and help them stand out. How much more fun will it be if you create the gesso papers yourself? Can’t get more unique than that, right?!?

Note: The featured image above was created using a paper I made with a solid blue background, some brushes from the same “20 Painter Brushes” brush set & some brushes from “Free Smoke Photoshop Brushes 6” I showed you last week. Both of these brush sets are available for free at Brusheezy.

Your Own Gesso Paper

A quick reminder before I begin…I use the current version of Photoshop Elements (PSE – 2024). Some of my screen shots may look different than what you see on your screen depending on the version you are using.

Last week I used two of the four brush sets I listed in that post…the “20 Painter Brushes” & “Free Smoke Photoshop Brushes 6” sets I mentioned above. This week I’m going to use some brushes from the other 2 sets:

• Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6
• Powder Photoshop Brushes 14

Now let’s make some gesso paper…

First, I’m going to walk you through how I created that paper in the Featured image above. As I did last week, I’m going to open a blank 12×12 file in PSE. I’m going to immediately fill the initial blank layer (Layer 1) with a lovely shade of blue (#5c7b8c):

If you’re following along you can use any color you choose.

As much as I love this particular shade of blue, I’m not interested in keeping that background so “flat”. I do want to add a bit of interest to this base as I intend to leave some of it showing under the gesso textures. Do you remember how I mentioned using alcohol inks back when I was a paper scrapper? Well, this is one of the things I figured out how to do digitally and I want to add that kind of look to this background.

To do this I’ve found that “smoke” brushes tend to work best. I’m going to be using two brushes from the “Free Smoke Photoshop Brushes 6” set that I mentioned above.

The first thing I’m going to do is create a new layer above Layer 1. PSE will default the name of this layer to Layer 2. You can leave it as is if you’re not going to save this file as a PSD when we’re done. For now, I’m going to name my new layer “Free Smoke PS Brushes 6 – Brush ??”. Later I’ll replace the “??” with the actual brush “name”. I do this so I’ll always know which brush set/brush I used when creating this background.

Next, I’m going to set my foreground color chip to a nice accent blue (#b5d9e7). With my brushes already loaded I select the brush tool and open the smoke brushes:

I really like the first one on the left in the second row (highlighted in light blue on my system) with 4809 in the box. Remember…this indicates the size (in this case the height) of that brush in pixels it is NOT the name of the brush. When I hover over that brush PSE displays a little pop-up indicating that this brush is simply named 81.

Note: If you read last week’s post about Creating Gesso Textures, you might be wondering about the size of that brush. Last week I said the largest brush size “we” could create using PSE is 2500px. If you’re using full Photoshop, the maximum size in either width or height is 5000px.

With Layer 2 active and brush 81 selected, I just “stamp” that brush onto the layer along the left edge and re-size it larger by a bit:

I then changed the “??” in the layer name to 81. The layer name now reads as this: “Free Smoke PS Brushes 6 – Brush 81”.

Next, I just duplicated this layer, flipped it horizontally, moved it to the right edge of the paper and made it quite a bit larger:

This is nice but I want to add a bit more “depth”. I’m going to use a different brush to see what I can do to boost this a bit.

I’m going to leave my foreground color chip set to the same accent blue and this time I select brush 88 from the “Free Smoke PS Brushes 6” brush set. I create a new layer above the duplicate of the layer “Free Smoke PS Brushes 6 – Brush 81”. And I’ll rename this new layer after I decide which brush I’m going to use.

I looked at the brushes again and decided on the third one from the left in the last row with 4848 in the box – brush 88. With the new layer active and brush 88 selected, I just “stamp” that brush onto the layer along the right edge and re-size it larger:

I then renamed the layer to “Free Smoke PS Brushes 6 – Brush 88”.

Next, I just duplicated this layer, flipped it horizontally, moved it to the left edge of the paper and made it just a bit larger:

I duplicated this layer, moved it to the bottom edge of the paper toward the middle and made it just a bit smaller to cover that small patch of the blue paper:

I like how this looks but I think it might be too “smoky”. I still want some of the original blue to show through under the “smoke”. I first tried to adjust things using the opacity level and just couldn’t come up with something I liked. So, I played with the blend mode and landed on Linear Burn for the two brush 81 layers & Soft Light for three brush 88 layers:

I love how this turned out. I know a lot of this is going to end up being covered by gesso so I actually saved it as a standalone paper that I could use later.

I don’t want to be distracted by this new background as I lay in my gesso so I’m going to hide these brush layers for the time being.

Now I’m ready to add the gesso texture. And again, as I did last week, I will be adding each texture on its own layer. I do this so I can manipulate each texture independently. This allows me to change each one’s size & and orientation if I choose. And with each texture on its own layer, I can also re-order them if I don’t like how things look.

I add my first new layer (Layer 2 by default for me since I renamed other layers). And because I saved all those lovely gesso textures that I made last week using the “20 Painter Brushes” set as PNG images, I can just go grab one of those, I first chose the one I created using the Painter 6 brush:

I did re-size & rotate it, placing it along the left edge of the paper:

Notice how the texture is actually slightly off the left and bottom edge of the paper. Now, I am going to rename this layer to “Texture 1 – 20PainterBrushes-Painter6-BevelSimple Emboss”. This way I know exactly which gesso texture I used for this layer.

Now I’m going to duplicate this layer and rename it to “Texture 2 – 20PainterBrushes-Painter6-BevelSimple Emboss”. This time I’m going to make that image smaller, rotate it just a bit toward the left and position it near the right edge of the paper:

Next, I’m going to add a new layer and bring in the texture I created using the Painter 7 brush:

And I rename this layer to “Texture 3 – 20PainterBrushes-Painter7-BevelSimple Emboss”. This time I kept the texture at its original size. But I did rotate this layer 90 degrees to the right, then flipped it horizontally and positioned it in the upper right corner of the paper rotating it just a bit more back to the left:

Now, I’m going to add another new layer and bring in the texture I created using the Painter 9 brush. I make it just a bit larger, free-rotate it just a bit and position it just over the right edge of the first texture:

I renamed this layer to “Texture 4 – 20PainterBrushes-Painter 9-BevelSimple Emboss”.

Now, I’m going to add another new layer and bring in the texture I created using the Painter 5 brush. I keep it at its original size, free-rotate it just a bit and position it pretty much between the third & fourth textures:

I rename this layer to Texture 5 – 20PainterBrushes-Painter5-BevelSimple Emboss

With another new layer added I bring in the texture I created using the Painter 1 brush. I re-size, free-rotate it just a bit and position it pretty much over the fifth texture but slightly lower to cover some of the blue background that is showing:

I rename this layer to “Texture 6 – 20PainterBrushes-Painter1-BevelSimple Emboss”.

Now I’m going to duplicate the “Texture 2 – Painter 6 Brush Simple Emboss” layer, move it above the “Texture 6” layer I just created & rename it to “Texture 7 – Painter 6 Brush Simple Emboss”. I re-size & reposition it so it’s over the top left corner of the paper:

I duplicate that layer, rename it to “Texture 8 – Painter 6 Brush Simple Emboss”, re-size & rotate it just a bit before positioning it pretty much over the fourth & sixth textures to cover some of the blue background that is still showing across the top:

I duplicate that layer, rename it to “Texture 9 – Painter 6 Brush Simple Emboss”, rotate it just a bit & position just to the left of the eighth texture to cover the last bit of blue background that is still showing across the top:

Note: If you didn’t create any “gesso” PNG files last week using the “20 Painter Brushes” no worries. You can use those same brushes I called out above and add the bevel settings I used last week (or any other bevel of your choosing). In this way you could still closely replicate these textures.

I really don’t feel the need to re-order any of the layers so I’m nearly finished. I’m going to unhide all those smoke brushes to see how this gesso looks over that background:

I’m so glad I gave the background that “alcohol ink” look. To me it seems so much nicer than the solid blue. But there’s a part of me that thinks the gesso is too “bold”. I’m going to adjust the opacity of these textures to “soften” them just a bit. I tried multiple opacity levels and landed on 85%:

I like that so much better. But the intensity of the white gesso is purely a personal preference. You can certainly play around with the opacity levels on your own to see what you like the best.

Now all that’s left is to save this as a JPG file for use later. And that’s how I created the background for the featured image at the top of this post:

Earlier I mentioned that today I’d also be using some other brushes from packs I mentioned last week. Well, now’s the time to get to those…

Other Gesso Options

I’ll start with a new 12×12 blank file. This time I’m going to go bring in that Vintage Paper texture from my post about Creating Vintage Paper:

This will be the base for this next gesso option. Along with this paper I’ll be using brushes from the “Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6” I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Because I keep all my gesso “brushes” on their own layer I create a new layer above this vintage paper.

Since I may end up saving this as a PSD file, I also named that layer “Texture 1 – Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6 – ??”. I’ll change the “??” to the brush name after I decide which brush I’ll use for this layer.

With my brushes already loaded, the Texture 1 layer active and my foreground color chip set to white, I select the brush tool and choose the brush I want to use first, “89” (highlighted in light blue):

I then just “stamp” the brush in the upper left-hand corner of the paper:

As you can see this is another square shaped brush as we saw back in that post about creating vintage paper. And since the size on this brush is 2500, it doesn’t cover the whole paper. But all I have to do is re-size it:

When I re-sized this brush, I ensured that it went slightly over the edge of the paper on all sides. Just to be sure that no “brown” showed around the edges.

Now it’s time to add the texture with a bevel just like we did in last week’s post. I was still happiest with the Simple Emboss bevel. As opposed to the settings I used last week (Lighting Angle of 120 degrees, Size of 40px & Direction of Up) I used the PSE default for the style: Lighting Angle of 90 degrees & Size of 21px but I did change the Direction to Down:

I then rename this layer to read as “Texture 1 – Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6 – 89 SimpleEmboss-90-21-Down”.

This is a nice paper as it is and I did save it as a JPG file for use later. But I think I want to add a bit more texture. So, I add another new layer and initially rename it to Texture 2 – Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6 – ??”. I’ll adjust that name after I pick a brush and style settings.

I ultimately picked brush 86 from the “Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6” brush set. This too needed to be re-sized to cover the entire paper. This time I played a bit with the bevel options before landing on the Simple Inner Bevel keeping the default settings (Lighting Angle of 90 degrees & Size of 21px & Direction of Up:

I did rename this layer to read as “Texture 2 – Free Paint Photoshop Brushes 6 – 86 SimpleInner-90-21-Up”. This too is a nice paper as is so again, I saved it as a JPG for later use. But I think I want to add some color now.

As in last week’s post, there are lots of options to re-color these gesso layers. I could “colorize” the layer, clip a paper/gradient to it or I could do something just a bit different. This time I thought I’d try duplicating that Texture 2 layer and playing with that using a gradient paper from the “Turquoise Gradient Paper” pack from Creative Fabrica:

I used the one you can see in the lower left corner of the preview. I clipped that to the duplicate of the Texture 2 layer, then set the blend mode of that duplicate layer to Color Burn and the opacity to 65%. Here is the result:

So happy with that. This too was saved as a JPG as I’m sure this could come in handy for my next “seaside” layout 😉

I don’t want you to think that adding bevels is the only way to add texture to your “stamped” brushes. Sometimes adding a shadow is sufficient. Read on for a texture alternative…

Alternative To Bevel

There is one other way to create the gesso texture that is perhaps a bit unorthodox…using the PSE Emboss filter (in the Stylize Category). If you read my post about “other filters” on paper you may have caught that the Emboss filter will turn an image to grayscale. That certainly isn’t something I would normally want to do with gesso. But I have a work around for that.

The Emboss filter makes a selection appear raised or stamped which is great for creating the kind of texture that works for gesso. But as I said, PSE converts the image color to grayscale. The first part of the work around is that I can’t use the filter directly on the “brush”. I always duplicate my brush before applying any filter just in case I mess things up. If you’re feeling brave and want to work on the initial brush…go for it! Sadly, I’m generally not that brave 😉

So, for the next gesso paper I’m again going to start with a new 12×12 blank file. I’m still going to go bring in that Vintage Paper texture that I used in the last example along with some brushes from the “Powder Photoshop Brushes 14” that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I’ll also be following the same layer creation/naming I have used before as I will also save this file as a PSD. I’m just not going to go into all that detail for each step this go round.

With my brushes already loaded, the Texture 1 layer active and my foreground color chip set to white, I select the brush tool and choose the brush I want to use first, “Pd 4” (highlighted in light blue):

I then just “stamp” the brush in the upper left-hand corner of the paper:

Since the size on this brush is 2500, it doesn’t cover much of the paper. But all I have to do is re-size it:

I duplicate this layer and hide the original. With the duplicate layer active I open Filters at the bottom of the Layers Panel and select Stylized->Emboss. I set the Angle to 120 degrees (90 also works well) Height to 40 and Amount to 175:

The first work around is for me to play with the blending modes. With this particular configuration several blend modes provided interesting results:

Any one of these could work but I think I’d like to see how this plays out using the Color Dodge blend mode.

So, I’m now going to create a new layer above this “embossed” layer. I select the brush tool and choose the brush I want to use now, “Pd 15”. I then just “stamp” the brush in the lower right-hand corner of the paper and re-size it:

Now, I’m going to do the exact same thing with the second texture as I did the first texture. When I finished that I realized I wasn’t happy with the amount of “brown” that was left so I just re-sized both textures until I was happier. Here is the result:

There are a couple other options that I’m going to show you using these exact textures but in different ways. First, as opposed to using a blend mode on the embossed textures, I tried just converting them to B&W using Enhance->Convert to Black and White->newspaper and change the Adjust the Intensity value for the Blue channel until I got a suitable color (somewhere around 120-125). And here is the result:

You can play with this on you own and see what you can come up with but good luck with that Blue channel slider😉 And be sure to keep the Contrast at around zero!

One last twist…I then thought I’d try blending the Embossed gesso textures converted to B&W using Darken & an opacity of 60%.

I can’t even tell you how I stumbled on that but I also tried blending the B&W “embossed” gesso textures using Multiply & an opacity of 60%:

Both of these gave the effect that it is “clear” gesso. I was sort of shocked at those blending modes. They are very similar to some that I achieved above with blending the grayscale images…but I certainly didn’t expect it to work like this with a “white” image! I found that using Pin Light or Luminosity at an opacity 60% also provided similar results.

I’m going to kick this “clear” gesso look up a notch by using a layer style from “Stylin’ 109 – Flair & Gloss” by Mommyish (sadly, now retired). I also change the opacity level to 50%:

If you’re interested in trying to create a similar look there are two different layer style packs with options that can help you get close: “Style No. 75 – Glass” by Sahin Designs (available at The Lilypad). I found that using the style named “sd-styleno75-7” worked out well. And “Water Styles Kit” by Sheila Reid (available at DigitalScrapbook.com). I found that using the style named “SheilaReid_water13” seemed to work out pretty well.

So, using the Emboss filter can work but it takes a little more work. The upside is…it seems to ultimately provide a wide array of alternative looks.

Clip Gesso Paper To Elements

Once you’ve created your gesso paper it’s time to think outside the box for just a minute. Don’t stop at just using your paper as a background. Try clipping your favorite gesso texture paper to some other elements for your layout. Things like leaves work particularly well.

Of all the “plain” gesso papers I created today I think my favorite is this one:

I also grabbed these two random leaf elements (from where or by whom is unknown) out of my personal stash:

As usual, I’m going to create a new blank 12×12 file. I then bring in that Vintage Paper texture again but for now I’m going to hide it. Next, I’ll bring in those leaves:

Now with that brown & gold leaf’s layer active (the grey one is temporarily hidden) I pull in my favorite gesso paper & reposition it so the best part of the texture is over most of the leaf. I then clip it to the leaf element:

I know it’s not showing up very well right now…be patient!

Now with that grey leaf’s layer active I pull my favorite gesso paper & reposition it so the best part of the texture is over most of that leaf. I then clip it to the element:

Now I’ll unhide the vintage paper and add some shadows so you can see how this looks:

Other than the texture from the paper these leaves look just a bit flat. I’m going to remove that shadow style for now. And watch what just a bit of a bevel can do to fix that flat look:

That looks much better as it bevels the edges giving them a more natural looking lift/texture. And I don’t think it requires any shadow at this point. I used the Simple Inner bevel style at the default settings (Lighting Angle = 90 degrees, Size = 21 & Direction = Up).

Take a look at what else you can do with these textured leaves:

Well that takes gesso paper to a whole different level. All I did was duplicate the leaves, re-size them & then scatter them over that same gesso paper I used for clipping to the leaves. I also changed the bevel Size to 15 after I first put this together. It looked a bit harsh at the original bevel size.

Let this sink in for a minute and your imagination will surely start going a bit wild! Just go with it and have fun!

More Tips On Gesso

The best part about digital gesso is you don’t have to worry about it “cracking” off the paper!!!

You can write on digital gesso paper. Something you can’t really do (at least not easily) with real gesso!

Gesso papers can help you take your mixed media backgrounds to the next level!

Use gesso paper to give texture and play with blend modes and opacities for surprising results.

Be sure to experiment with different blend modes if you clip a paper to your gesso textures.

Once you’ve created a gesso background you can clip it to other elements like leaves or butterflies to end up with some very interestingly textured elements that you can add to a page.

When clipping textured paper to elements sometimes for best results it’s easier to reposition the paper AFTER you clip it to the element.

More importantly…please just have a lot of fun working with your gesso textures!

As always, if you have any questions or want to make a suggestion about a topic you’d like me to cover, please don’t ever hesitate to “Message Me”.

Thanks for reading this week’s Tuesday Tip. If you want to stay informed about new posts, just click “Follow Me” to stay in touch. I hope you have a wonderful week!