Emulsion Lifts and Gesso

[bvy]

I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with Polaroid or Impossible Project emulsion lifts -- and the necessity of priming the receiver surface (watercolor paper in my case) with a medium like acrylic gesso. My experience is that if I do the emulsion lift immediately after exposing the film (waiting for it to develop fully, of course) that the emulsion takes to the paper readily and dries without cracking or peeling. If I wait a day or more, then it's a toss up. I have a few like this that are starting to peel, and I'm wondering if/how I can repair them.

Does gesso have any adhesive qualities? Can I apply it to the peeling ones? Would applying it first have made it more stable?

I'm interested to hear anyone's experiences. Thanks.

 

[winger]

I've never used gesso for this, but I've used mod podge to get Fuji lifts to stick to watercolor paper. There are higher end acrylic gel mediums that will do the same thing. I haven't had an issue with mod podge yellowing, but it might be more likely to do so than the gel medium.