What to do with Master Disasters

Onerom1945

Is it possible to gesso over a finished oil painting that is a Master Disaster to reuse the canvas?

dencal

Onerom1945

No. Applying acrylic (gesso) over an oil layer that is prone to move and shrink is not good practice.
If you can scrape, dissolve or sand most of the oil paint off it should be fine. But this is a lot of mess and effort.
Buy some new gessoed canvas and reuse the stretchers.

Denis

Richard_P

I agree with Denis. But you could also keep the canvas as a practise surface for playing with new brushes, paints, ideas, etc..

Csontvary

I would be wary of scraping over old paintings particularly if you used cadmium colors. Those are very dangerous in particulate form.