Tag: crackle paste

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Acrylic pastes, gesso and texture

Last year I decided I wanted to delve into more textural and sculptural effects for my mixed media work, it has taken until now to gather sufficient supplies to have a range to experiment with, to research and to decide what works for me. I can tell you, it was a minefield initially as there are just so many mediums out there and they all differ with brands too. I also am a bit of an alchemist (especially in the kitchen) so I liked the idea of making my own mediums from the raw minerals etc. To do that, one really needs to go back in history to see how things were done by the masters. Hence, marble powder was on my hit list. That arrived with my order from Germany last week. So I now have modelling pastes, texture pastes, crackle pastes, gesso’s, marble paste and air dried clays. All rather delicious!. Continue reading Acrylic pastes, gesso and texture

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It’s often in the little things

This week I have been working on a collaboration project which we hope to start to bring online in a month or two so keep an eye out for Wildly Created’s amazing products coming soon on a device near you…and in an Etsy shop. Also, I have been busy with my mixed media pieces. After the 60 x 20 cm “Fishing for Compliments” piece I posted about last week, I decided to go much smaller and incorporating a range of foraged and found materials and embellishments. I have some 10 x 10 cm canvases and some mixed media boards. I am using my new favourite mediums… modelling paste, crackle paste and glass bead gel until I receive a delivery of other products. Everything is of course taking much longer these days and increasingly harder to source with shipping costs and Brexit, plus Covid changing guidelines and related costs. Those of us living in Europe are looking to other European countries more than the usual UK favourites. If I find any websites I feel worth recommending, I will share. Evans Art in Dublin have been wonderful, a family fun business, reasonably priced and shipping times. Currently looking at German sites, but a lot depends on the VAT which I am noticing way more sites than before are not including VAT with prices, and shipping costs are by quote only. Many have reasonably high minimum order limits too which can be prohibitive for the smaller businesses and creatives. Yep, the struggle is real folks. Continue reading It’s often in the little things

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Fishing for compliments

So here is the finished first experimental piece combining modelling paste, glass bead gel, crackle paste, home-made air dried paper clay, acrylic inks, iridescent medium, acrylic satin varnish and found objects from the beach on stretched canvas 60 x 20 cms. The piece is more vibrant than the camera shows with a lovely shimmer from the iridescent medium and inks. Continue reading Fishing for compliments

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Adding some texture

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. Continue reading Adding some texture