Textures Using Acrylic Medium

I continue to discover new methods for using acrylic paints and mediums every week in my Monday mixed media class.  The possibilities are really endless!  Last week we used a variety of acrylic mediums and improvised tools to create physical textures on our chosen surface [canvas board, watercolor paper, mat board, or stretched canvas].  Each medium appears differently on each surface – do the math on that!  Lots of opportunity to play for life. 

In this example  I started by drizzling gesso in an area and then flattened a portion of that with a palette knife and did some scrafetti into it.  Then I pressed some light molding paste through a box stencil, spread some gel gloss [regular & and soft] and then scraped into, pressed into, and stamped into it with various items to create textures.  After all of this dried I puddled dilute fluid acrylics in warm tones across the surface.  The paint dries differently in each of the various areas of texture.  It makes for an interesting start – but, most of the texture is not visible on this photo.  [Note:  all products listed are made by Golden]

We were meant to work with this start abstractly at least at the beginning but I find that very challenging.  Without “thingness” I struggle to know how to move forward.  However, I dove in and glazed some transparent areas then added darker passages and towards the end some opaque areas.  I tend to see figures in everything I look at and this was no exception.  It naturally evolved, what can I say?

Naturally, this process is a teeter-totter – if you make a mark in one place you have to respond to that mark somewhere else.  Completing a piece could, quite literally, take forever.  It’s a matter of knowing what you like and quitting as soon as you see it.  Doesn’t that sound easy?  HA HA…  right!!!!  It’s a bit like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without any edges.  The good news is that light areas can be lost and found and lost and found again – yay for acrylics!  It’s a fun challenge.  Here’s a photo of the piece as it was before class today, warts and all.  I’ll have a new and improved version here tomorrow.  Cheers!