Yesterday I used gloss medium to thin out and mix acrylic paints for the first time to very good effect. The painting below, “Julia and the Porcelain Doll”, is the result. My model was Julia Hanna, who has long, beautiful hair.
However, this was not the first time I had used gloss medium with acrylics. The last time I did it, it was by accident and with very strange results. I had picked up a tube of gloss thinking it was white paint. I proceeded to mix the white with red and yellow to make flesh tones, but when the painting dried, the white disappeared. The result was bizarre.
My painting style has always been expressive, with heavy gobs of paint piled one on another and very evident brush strokes. I was not known for being subtle in blending in my colors. But nobody had ever told me about gloss or what it is used for. I was shocked to see what happened when the white disappeared out of my portrait’s face. Eventually, I repainted in my customary heavy-handed style.
However, recently I have taken an interest in more subtle gradations of dark and light and color. When painting my mother and father and uncle from an old black and white photo, I longed to make the highlights on my mother’s face less glaring.
I was inspired to some extent by a technique I learned from my daughter when she applied makeup to my face.
You can see this technique adapted to painting in the video below.
But what ever happened to that tube of gloss? It was still hiding in my paintbox. And now that I read up on the subject I was determined to use it, mixing in lightly with the other colors. It really made a difference to my end result!
Conclusion: Do not substitute gloss medium for white, but add a little gloss to your already mixed paints to thin them out and to add flow to your painting. It makes everything blend together so much better! Even if your painting style is expressive like mine, a little mixing of colors goes a long way. It will not turn you into a heavy handed realist, but it will add an impressionistic shimmer to your subject’s face.
Related
https://www.pubwages.com/54/messy-painting
https://www.pubwages.com/42/return-to-the-messy-painting
https://www.pubwages.com/36/the-art-of-repetition
https://www.pubwages.com/41/painting-a-happy-day-at-the-libertarian-convention
