I have several that were given to me, no signature, no nothing. They are all flat sheen, but one has a touch of texture in the center around some grapes. They were likely done by a student, as they were headed to the trash bin. How can I tell what they were painted with? As the canvases are in great condition, heavy weight and fairly new (frame and all) *and* seems to be at least 2 skins of gesso over it (edges are not tucked, so you can see the gesso) - I would like to redo them jsu for practice pieces. Just in case I bond with one, though, I would like it to not fall apart in a year or so. Any ideas?

I am an artist, btw..however, I do not mess with oils, as i have small children in my home. I work in acrylic and ink usually, so this is new territory for me. Thank you in advance!

LHK/CreatedSouls (c)

It is hard to tell, but flat and textureless sounds more like acrylic to me.

I have never worked with oils, but I have painted with acrylic, and I don't recall ever having texture from the paint..

I have three oil paintings in my home (one done by someone I went to college with and two done by my grandmother) and they all have texture. However, some places have more texture than others.

In the case of the one done by the college student (who was studying art), there is alos no gesso used (she purposely left some blank canvas).

I can not be sure, but if I were to guess between oil and acrylic, I would guess that most are acrylic.