New goodies have started arriving and I’ve started testing them out. Gesso can be a bit of a hit and miss affair…the really cheap stuff is mostly cheap white acrylic paint mixed with a binder and dries shiny so I would recommend going for something mid priced to get a decent product. Of course that depends on what you are using it for. I wanted a shine free matt finish that I could work into to get marks, textures etc and then apply inks. For a primer to then apply acrylic paint, the cheap stuff would work fine. I am going to make my own gesso soon with plaster of paris so that will be for another time. These images are on a long canvas with cheap gesso and various mark making which produced a very thin layer and glossy finish. Not really what I wanted but may be useful on a different project, or, I may add some plaster to it.
I also have some Liquitex modelling paste which is wonderful stuff, some glass beads from Golden and Galeria, some crackle paste from Golden as well as some other goodies. Today I will concentrate on the former items. Golden and Liquitex are excellent brands. Modelling paste can also be called molding paste.
On my long canvas I have applied modelling paste with a small palette knife in varying thicknesses and applied pieces of mesh from fruit bags to create texture. I also applied pieces of the mesh netting so they became embedded in the clay and allowed some to extrude giving wonderful raised textures. There are various weights of the paste too, I used a light one.
I then applied some Golden crackle paste which takes 3 to 4 days to dry and for decent sized cracks to form. It is not advised to assist in the drying time, so one must be patient. Varying the thickness will give smaller or larger cracks. I am very pleased with this product too.
I then tried the two glass beads products. The Golden one had smaller beads and seemed a more pleasing finish. The Galeria one took longer to dry and was less smooth and the beads were more pronounced. Both have their place but I preferred the Golden medium. Both dried clear.
I embedded some found objects into my modelling paste before it dried and this all held perfectly.
The Liquitex and Daler Rowner inks have arrived as well as the iridescent medium, so I am planning to pearlise the inks to apply to this piece once the rest of my experiments are ready…
Next post is about the paper clay I made…
I am not affiliated with any of the above names, however, I am an affiliate of Jacksons Art and I do use them for some of my purchases. Recently I have been using Irish suppliers since Brexit, partly to support local, and also because of changes in shipping etc due to Brexit and lockdown issues with couriers.
Karima Rebecca Powell Artist 
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