Gesso Backgrounds

I tried stamping with gesso here. On the top I used a slightly damp sponge to apply the gesso to the stamp before rubbing on brown ink then overstamping the floral pattern. On the bottom half the sponge was much wetter-this actually gave me a better impression. The texture here doesn't come through in the scan very well but it looks awesome in real life. The one thing I do like about the top part of the piece is that I was able to rub some of the ink of while it was still a little wet giving it a faded look. That didn't work as well on the bottom half.