Saturday, January 30, 2010

Sometimes Less IS Better

Typically when you are painting lets say a wall of a house you don't want to spread the paint too thin. You want a nice thick and even coat. And for such a project I would stick with it because it will look nicer in the long run. BUT if you are painting on a canvas and creating a fine piece to art you can play with how think you spread the paint. You might find that in some cases less paint just might be better.

To really make the effect of thinning out your acrylic paint work the best you should use water. With oil paints you have a paint thinner that you can use..but here I am going to discuss acrylic paints.

If you don't use water to thin out the paint on the canvas you will find yourself using more paint than you really want to. When you thin out the paint you get an almost Tuscan feel to it. Its a cool thing to have on a canvas...thicker paint in one area and really think paint to where you can almost see the white of the canvas in the other area. Now keep in mind though...you are adding water to the paint...so therefore it will take longer to dry. So if you plan on putting a different color on the top of the color you thinned out you might want to let it dry some. The water on the canvas might try to thin out paint you don't want to thin out, plus a wet paint mixes more with other paint. So if you want to put yellow on top of blue, let it dry. If you don't...you will get the lovely color green and you will be kicking yourself for not being patient.

A good way to use water with your paints is keep a spray bottle handy. This is good to have around to keep your paints nice and wet because acrylics tend to dry out faster than you plan on them drying and then before you know it you wasted all that paint...and trust me...wasting paint is money down the drain! Spray water on the palette and on the paint its self....play with it some to see how much water you want and don't want. I wouldn't spray your canvas...keep the water on the brush because then you are in control on how much water you put on the canvas and where it goes. If you spray the canvas you are gonna have splattered and runny paint. So keep it on the brush.

So try this out and see how it works for you, because sometimes you will find Less Is Better!

Happy Painting!