This weekend I attended an Acrylic workshop given by Golden Acrylics in an effort to learn this frustrating medium. I really learned a lot. I have been using the wrong acrylics and fighting them. Most of the acrylics that I have are the ones in tubes which have a heavier consistency. I have a couple of the liquid acrylics made by Liquitex but the colors seem to be diluted along with the thickness. I thought that was just the way they were supposed to be.
The Golden acrylics colors are very intense and I felt much more comfortable working with the thin paints rather than the thick ones. Too bad that I have about a 10 year supply of the thick ones. They will be good for base coats on paintings anyway.
We were able to work on a variety of supports that had been prepared using many of their mediums. This was a great way to experiment without purchasing each one. The above painting was done on their crackle medium, which is probably pretty obvious. I loved the workability of the paint on this surface. It was similar to watercolor but less stressful and it was easier for me to be a little more loose with the strokes. Okay, it's still pretty tight but considering my painting style, it is looser.
Here are some of the other mediums we tried:
Tar Gel - loved it
Fiber Paste - This looked like a very rough piece of watercolor paper so I felt right at home. I
didn't try to do a representational painting on it though so I need to try it again.
Light Molding Paste - This was smoothly applied to a support and we painted on it. We didn't use it to add texture. It was fun to paint on but again, I did an abstract so I need to experiment some more.
Black Gesso - Really a lot of fun, another abstract.
Gesso Board - I tried to paint a realistic painting on this and hated it. I washed it off, (as best I could) and did an abstract, which was okay but I probably would stay away from this one.
