How I (somehow) managed to clean half a tub of gesso out of carpet
I don’t have a before because my initial response when I dumped half a tub of gesso onto my carpet was not "let’s get a before pic for the amazing transformation!" Instead it was, "oh shit oh shit oh shit!" Because this is my grandparents’ carpet, not mine, and anyone who knows acrylics knows that you don’t have much time before the acrylic dries and gets a whole lot worse.
But yeah, I dropped a whole jar and half the contents glopped out onto the carpet. it was not just a few drips splatters… but thick globs all over the carpet. I thought I was royally screwed. anyway my first response was to scoop as much as I could back into the jar with my hands, being careful to not to smear it past where it has already touched the carpet. Then I immediately wet a bunch of paper towels, wrung them out, and spread them over the top of the gesso to keep it from drying out. This gave me a bit more time to try and make a game plan.
I decided that I would go at it with a bunch of paper towels and the spray Dawn dish soap, keeping a bin of water nearby. the initial cleanup was important to keep refreshing the paper towels since they were gathering lots of the paint on their surface. I was only making small wipes in the beginning to avoid smushing it deeper into the carpet as much as I could. I did this as much as I could to get the thicker paint off, then I sprayed the entire surface with the Dawn soap. I am guessing the spray made a difference since it coated the whole area of the paint quickly without me needing to work it in like you would with other dish soap. I tried to keep it minimal scrubbing in the earlier stages, but at some point I was slightly desperately scrubbing, but trying not to overwork it either to ruin the carpet fibers.
anyway, it was scrubbing and then using dry paper towels and pushing down to blot the water and paint up, then adding more water and going at it again. to my absolute shock, it came up much more than I was expecting. I think the biggest key was keeping it wet.
my plan for whatever the soap couldn’t get out would’ve been to use rubbing alcohol, but I didn’t need to get to that point. I also wasn’t dumping water onto the carpet, I was squeezing a sopping paper towels and putting over the areas. but to wrap up I used lots and lots of big, dry towels to lay over the spot and stomp on them to get as much water up as possible, and I have a fan actively blowing over the damp spot. there is definitely dish soap residue but I know my grandparents have a carpet cleaning machine somewhere I can use to probably get the dish soap up. I’d rather that be the problem than gesso, anyway.
I should’ve protected the carpet better, but this is so much better than I was hoping for. I also had luck helping me since the gesso was white. there is a slight white cast on the carpet where it spilled, but it’s not very noticeable unless you know to look for it. any other color and I imagine it would’ve left a stain. Anyway I’m not a carpet expert, just an artist who got way too lucky. Thought I’d share this for anyone who finds themselves in a similar tricky scenario