Impasto Inquiries - DAY 3

Hello! Today it's third and final day of  the "Impasto Inquiries" Trio! Trios are posts that I started while I was a member of the Seth Apter Creative Team. I enjoyed making a series of three posts so much, that I decided to continue them at least for a while. If you want to see the older Seth Trios, you can find them under this label (link). The Trio posts usually had a topic, or a product, to which I concentrated, like Izink ICE (link). Or I could challenge myself with limited supplies (link) or use one source of inspiration for three pieces, like I did with "Mothers of Kalevala" (link). In a way they are extended versions of the "Inspired By" posts we used to make together with Marsha Valk. You can explore those posts under this label (link).

This month I'm concentrating on Impasto acrylic paints from the Finnabair line. This theme was suggested when I was asking for Facebook live ideas and I felt that a simple Facebook live might have been too short of a time to study the paints. So, in the course of three posts I'm showing different aspects of the paints, sharing some techniques but also making comparisons. In the first post I was comparing the Impastos with two ways to thicken paint to kind of match the thickness of them. Yesterday I was showing Impasto paints side by side with regular acrylics and today I'm then diluting the Impastos to be more like regular acrylic paints.

Like you saw yesterday, Impastos don't always work on all techniques. For some, a more fluid, soft body paint is better. But if you have just the perfect color of Impasto, you can turn it more soft by diluting it. Like I say in the video, you can use water for that, too, but be careful. Especially on top of a non-absorbing surface like glass you might dilute the paint too much so it doesn't stick to the surface anymore. Because when you are diluting the paint, you are diluting the binder, the sticky part. While water is fine for some things, consider other options for that when working with acrylics. 

Gel mediums are meant to alter acrylic paints, they are designed for that. They are a kind of see-through acrylic paint in various thicknesses ranging from very fluid to really thick. In the first video I used a heavy body version to thicken the paint and in this part I use a soft body version to dilute the paint. Gel mediums are colorless so it works like water but as it has the binder in it, you don't have to worry about the paint not sticking. With gel medium you can also make washes and glazes out of acrylics, just add a lot of medium and just a touch paint (the colorant). 

The other product I'm using to dilute the paint are the Liquid acrylics from Finnabair line. They are really fluid acrylics, more like acrylic inks. As these mediums have pigment, I'm trying to match the colors. Because if I'd add a red Liquid acrylic to a green Impasto, I'd get a brownish tone. As I'm adding a pigmented medium to a pigmented medium the end result is more covering, more pigmented than its counterpart. You can see the difference in this photo of the backgrounds. You can see the text and lines through the gel diluted one on the right but not so much on the left. Although, I have to point out that I did use a darker color on the left as well. But if you compare the bottom parts of the tags, where the colors match more, you can see the same difference. Also, I need to point out that some pigments are more opaque than others by nature. In artist quality paints you can see how opaque or translucent the paint is from the symbols. But now I'm getting carried away.

In this video I'm not bringing new techniques to the table, but instead use techniques I've already shared in the other two videos. It's more about the comparison of the two ways to make Impastos softer. As with the other two series of tags, I'm then finishing these two as well. I add some stenciling on top, two ways, and then a Tim Holtz paper doll and some embellishments. 

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you have enjoyed this Trio and maybe have found something new from it! Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions to new Trios! Have a great weekend everyone! 

Materials: Prima Marketing, Paper Garden, Stencil Girl, Ranger, Tim Holtz, Posca