Acrylic paints....please help!

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Permalink Reply by Nicola B on July 30, 2008 at 9:27pm

Hi Lesley I have never used acrylics so I'm not sure but have just looked in Jacksons catalogue and D&R do a Flow enhancer 'colourless liquid to reduce viscosity and enhance flow'.Sounds what you need. Hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Anil Razdan on July 31, 2008 at 3:29am

Hi Lesley,
I have used acrylics on paper. Not sure how it interacts with canvas, or jesso coating on it.
Anil

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Permalink Reply by Azure on July 31, 2008 at 3:29pm

Hi Lesley, I find when working on a canvas that priming it can save lots of headache's down the line.
I use a sponge brush and layer a coat of gesso, let it dry, lightly sand with fine grade sand paper. Then do it two more times, letting it dry well in between the application's of gesso.

Also are you using tube or liquid acrylics? When I need to use a rigger brush, I switch over to a liquid acrylic. I use Golden's, or Dick Blick's acrylics in both heavy body and liquid. Your flow enhancer should be a liquid also.

Just a note here, the better pigment(color) load in your paints, the better they will take to having water mixed in them. Learning about color and how or what to buy was hard for me to get threw my thick head, but well worth all the reading and practice

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Permalink Reply by Thomsi on July 31, 2008 at 3:41pm

When I saw your question, first thing that came to mind was flow enhancer, but I see you have already been given that tip. I read somewhere that when doing tree limbs in acrylic it is best so have the paint very thin and to roll the brush over the canvas rather than stroke it.

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Permalink Reply by Mad Capt. Madman on July 31, 2008 at 6:14pm

I've been working on something (take a look) where I want a lot of smooth blends for skin color and such. Acrylics, sorry to say, sucks for such work. Apparently, for smooth color blends, you...and I..need the SLOW drying time of oils. Like J. Vermeer and other geniuses, who speaks to me in dreams. Oil has the "body" which it keeps when linseed or other medium is added to it for better "action". Acrylic seems to lose that action when water or medium is added to it. Plus it dries real fast, so you dont have a lot of time to "play" with it. Only suggestion, love...if you have a clear idea and can get it fast onto the canvas, paper...whatever...use acrylics. You will get great color and speed. Want to make something that will hang in the museum? Working slowly, lots of changes, smooth color blends? Oils...only. Hope someone proves me wrong, 'cause I love the color of acrylics, but I work so f*g slow...

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Permalink Reply by Lesley on July 31, 2008 at 7:49pm

Thank you all.

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Permalink Reply by Anil Razdan on August 12, 2008 at 4:10am

Hi Lesley,
Have you tried using a medium other than water. Liquitex makes several. One of them is gloss medium and varhish. It increases flow of acrylic paints. It adds gloss and transparency to acrylics. Do not mix with oil or Turpentine. I have a bottle right now.

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Permalink Reply by SPARTAN on August 12, 2008 at 10:02am

Hi Lesley,
I had the same problem, and found that it is not always the paint that causes it but rather the surface your painting on .Azure had the right idea.Using a few layers of gesso tends to smooth out the canvas and lessens its grip on your brush, but this I find is a bit time consuming.You could try painting on a different surface such as masonite or even MDF, which is a lot smoother.
Personally I like to give the canvas a few layers of paint as a kind of back ground colour.It as the same effect as priming but you wont have to sand it and you can paint over it almost straight away.

Hope this helps SPARTAN

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Permalink Reply by Gerri on August 12, 2008 at 4:04pm

Hi Lesley, I've used acrylic retarder, matte medium, and the odd time I've even used gel blending medium. This picture isn't museum quality Mad, but it shows some blending. This was done years ago, but I believe that I also used quite a few layers.

Marilyn, I heard of those acrylics, they're apparently a new product just out, they sound really interesting don't they?

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Permalink Reply by Sabina Surya Naya on August 13, 2008 at 1:49am

Dear Lesley,
It depends: When you want to have the acrylic flow, use soft body, if you don't have soft body take an empty jar (a little one) and mix some of the acrylic with - say Liquitex medium and varnish (green label) and some water. It will behave like a mayonnaise and look like a mayonnaise (I mean consistency). You're good to go now using whatever you have in the jar OR the soft body acrylics + flow enhancer or even pouring liquid. You may add some retarder as well for not getting dry too quickly .
I hope it helps.
Naya

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Permalink Reply by frodron on August 14, 2008 at 2:57pm

First of all there have been several good suggestions on this thread & I definitely agree that you must have a good surface & possibly a flow enhancer.
However, I don,t think this point has been covered, in that you could be using a heavy bodied paint
which can be difficult to use especially with a small brush.
A flow enhancer would definitely be an advantage if this is the case.

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Permalink Reply by Lou on January 4, 2009 at 9:48pm

Here's a trick that works for me. Instead of purchasing acrylic flow release I use a small amount of Spic n Span (detergent) in water. Flow release is a surfactant and so is Spic n Span. Both reduce the surface tension of water so that the acrylic flows better over the painting surface.

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