Thursday, December 31, 2015

ACRYLIC ARTIST WINTER 2015 ISSUE - DEMO 2

The next steps of the encaustic-look painting using only acrylics and acrylic mediums - from an article written by Sandra Duran Wilson in the latest issue of the Acrylic Artist Winter 2015 issue.



After the last application dries, take soft gloss acrylic medium and, with a palette knife, spread it over the entire board and let that dry.  (This is going to take a long time to dry due to our wet wet weather lately.)

Sandra calls this an isolation interference layer which works, when dry, to isolate the color(s) underneath.  When you put a color on top of this layer and don't like it or want to change it, you can still remove it by wiping it off with a damp towel or with alcohol, and still preserve anything underneath this layer.  So, in this step, she's protecting the layers we've put down previously before doing more.  Sweetie saw this (prior to the gloss medium) and said it's perfect, looks like something in a museum.  Of course, he was just kidding about abstract art.  So onward and upward we go!



The next step advises us to mix a little cobalt teal into heavy gel matte.  (I didn't have heavy gel matte so worked with what I had = matte medium mixed with a little cobalt teal fluid acrylic and some acrylic fiber paste to add some texture.)  Apply that over the bottom area and while the mixture is still wet, scribe into it with any tools you have, creating some texture there.  Make swirls or circles or any patterns you want at this point for the bottom part.

Then apply molding paste (I had a tiny jar that, when opened, was rock hard :( so had to improvise on this, too.)  Apply the molding paste, adding a few drops of white and purple on top of the paste so it's not completely white or completely purple.  Spread the paste mixture thinly over the top of the painting so some of the bottom layer shows through.  (Before you do this, you could remove some paint from the gloss areas or apply more paint to the area, playing with that to get the look you want - or just leave it as is.)

I'll show it again when everything is dried - I'm sure it will look differently then.

That's it.  Takes some time, but you don't have to go out and buy anything but a few more acrylic colors (if you choose) and some acrylic mediums (heavy gel matte, molding paste, soft gel gloss), if you don't already have those in your studio.  You may even want to buy an Ampersand Encausticbord to use as your board.  (Looks like I'll be buying art supplies with my Christmas money!)

This demo was taken from Sandra Duran Wilson's article in the latest Acrylic Artist magazine but is also in her book, Acrylic Painting for Encaustic Effects.  She shares 45 step-by-step techniques in the book, and I think I may also be buying that soon.



2 comments:

Sadami said...

Wow, interesting!! Thank you for sharing such a precious and pains taking process with us. Please keep up wonderful work in 2016. Wish you very the best year. ((Hugs)) Sadami

Alice Jo Webb said...

Quite a process. I like encaustic work and am interested in watching this project as it goes. Perfect for a new year, learning and trying new ideas.