Musings on Texture Gels in Acrylic Paint

I mentioned in my last post that I'd been experimenting with various texture gels in my painting sessions. I would've expanded upon it then but it would have ballooned the post to much greater lengths than I wanted, so I'm going to note down a few musings on the subject here.

First of all, to be clear (because I've had trouble working out the terminology myself): in acrylic painting a gel is basically a mixture of the base of acrylic paint itself (acrylic polymer emulsion), without any colored pigments added in. It generally dries clear (if it's a “gloss finish”) or slightly milky white (for a “matte finish”). Gels can have various consistencies, but are generally thick enough that you can't pour them. (This is in contrast to mediums, which are still acrylic polymer emulsion, but mixed to a consistency thin enough to where they can be poured more-or-less freely. Gels and mediums can be mixed with paint and each other to get a paint with exactly the consistency you want.)

But back to the texture gels. My only experiences with paint growing up were the occasional practical painting job around the farm, so to my mind, paint was flat: you lay it down in a nice flat layer, and that's it. Painting pictures was therefore just laying colors down in flat two-dimensional layers (sometimes many on top of each other), and that was that. Quite similar, overall, to my experiences with layering in two-dimensional computer graphics.

Only recently have I begun to realize that (part of) the true power and potential of acrylic paint lies in what you can mix it with (which is just about everything except oils), and how that can produce paintings that transcend the two-dimensional surface upon which they sit to rise into the realm of true three-dimensionality. I'd never really thought of paint having texture or three-dimensionality before, but having tried texture gels recently it really is a game-changer. Adding texture to a paint can dramatically increase its presence on the canvas. It doesn't need to be flashy or showy, as even a subtle addition of texture triggers a subconscious reaction that makes the painting look more real by adding realistic shadows to the surface.

There are quite a few texture gels out there already, and it feels like more are being developed all the time. So far I've tried one that gives paint the consistency and feeling of stucco (really fun to work with!), one with tiny resin “sand” grains added (there's also one with real sand), one with ground-up pumice, one with tiny glass beads mixed in (which I mentioned previously), and just tonight a “heavy body gel” that's just a super-thick gel for making paint thicker for more impasto effects (which is the technical term for applying paint thickly enough to make it stand out from the canvas). They're all interesting, and I'm already thinking about trying out some of the other ones I've read about: crackle paste, which deliberately cracks when it dries, modeling paste which contains marble dust and dries into something that can be sanded and chiseled, clear leveling gel (which is really more of a medium, I don't know why it's called a gel) which is very thin and runny and makes paint spread out evenly over a surface…so many new things to try. And it feels like every new technique I experiment with is another tool in my artistic tool box, the combinations of which are rapidly spiraling into a combinatorial explosion of creative possibilities!

Anyway, I should wrap this post up with an update on the star painting series. They're coming along nicely; I worked on some of them for a bit this evening after work with an experimental mixture of slightly larger glass beads and heavy body gel on the two largest stars. I'm excited to see how it turns out tomorrow! Hopefully another few sessions and the stars should be done (most of the smallest ones already are, I think). A hui hou!