Art in Progress: Board Book: Page 4 step 1

Continuing in Trish's board book challenge. I realized I did not remember all the steps and left one out. So mine will be different. 1. First step was to gesso pages, let dry. Done. 2. Squirt cheap pva glue randomly all across both pages, don't do too much. Like the gloopy glue backgrounds done in the background noise series. (Mine, Trish's). Eek, my glue was so watery it ran all over the pages, so I dabbed some off with a paper towel. (Didn't take a picture as it was white on white and hard to see). Allow to dry overnight, done. 3. The next step was the one I forgot: apply another layer of gesso all over the top of the book pages and the glue mess, let dry. My page did not get that gesso layer. 4. Brush the brightest red acrylic paint you have over the surface of the board book and the glue. Be generous fill in all the nooks and crannies. Let dry overnight. Done. When I looked this morning, the red paint had cracked and separated, see picture:

I think it's because I skipped the gesso layer, but who knows. My Mom says it's beautiful, her favorite of all I've done so far. I'm not starting over on to step 5. Pour a little blob of metallic acrylic paint into a container (I choose gold). Dip your pointy finger into the paint and using your finger very lightly rub the gold paint across the surface of the book. Aiming to create gold highlights, paying particular attention to the raised glue ridges and let more of the gold paint fall upon those textures and ridges. Do not completely cover the page in gold - less is more. You want to see mainly red on the page. Let dry. Oops! I'm not good at lightly and am a bit heavy handed. Here's a picture:
You won't see much of a change, but I took a baby wipe and wiped off some of the excess gold paint: