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I just got a paint your own! Super excited! I chose the kitty griffin because it looks really cute. Although I’m no professional artist, I think I might do okay. Any advice is welcome, though! I would love a few extra tips and tricks.
I do have a question: Should I buy mixing medium to thin my Liquitex Basics acrylic, or will water do the trick? If I buy mixing medium, is there a particular brand to get?
I know there’s a products list out there but I think this question is a little specific. There are a lot of experienced painters on this forum and I hope they don’t mind me asking a little help 😉
Well, wish me luck!
[i]Keeping an eye out for fantasy gryphons and test paint dragons.[/i]
I find that so long as you’re only thinning it a little bit, water works just fine. If you’re thinning it a lot, I’d go for the medium. Although I don’t use the liquitex, so I have no mental image of how thick they are to begin with. I work mostly with brands that already come pretty thin.
I use liquitex basics acrylic paints as well, and it is quite thick. I would recommend Golden GAC-100, Multi-purpose Acrylic Polymer, as a mixing medium. I find it works great ! I was told one shouldnt use water as it may eventually cause the paint to flake when the piece becomes older. But its your choice in the end 😉 Im only a beginner myself 🙂
The medium I use is Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid in Satin or Gloss. It says on it that is extends the working time of acrylic paints and makes them nice and smooth and a bit thinner. I haven’t used water or other thinners myself as I find this works great for me. I also read not to use water as I didn’t want to affect the quality of the paints now or in the future. I guess it depends on how thick your paints are as I use various brands that already seem thin enough and I don’t like them too thin because I only paint 2-4 layers of paint and don’t want to have to paint more or get the paint too thick on parts.
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I use the Liquitex Basics paints too and have great luck with the Liquitex Irridesent Medium, if you wish the paint to have some shine to it. The Golden Medium (GAG-100) mentioned in other posts works great as well, although I’ve only found it online not at a store.
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*** Come visit me on deviantArt at http://ela-hara.deviantart.comI’ve used thinners, but I tend to use water. I haven’t had a PYO flake out on me, and my oldest one dates from 2006. Mind you, I think water will break down the paint only if you dilute it until it’s almost watery.
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http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmWow, thanks for all the advice everyone! I think I’ll use the medium just to be safe. I’ll see if I can get it at a local art supplier.
[i]Keeping an eye out for fantasy gryphons and test paint dragons.[/i]
I’ve never used a medium with my paints. I find that having a bit of water on your brush is just fine to “thin” out some of the paint, though I never use water to directly mix into the paints.
I would recommend checking out Golden Retarder – using some of this in your paint thins them out a bit, and also makes acrylics last a bit longer (their drying time is extended). If you’re like me and think you may put your paints away for a day or two before continuing work on a PYO, retarders will be your best friend!
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Please visit My Webpage to see my art and PYO's that I've done in the past!I’ve bought mediums but honestly saw no point, water works even better, if you even find yourself having to thin the paint. Save your money (and sanity) for the paints themselves, I reckon. I rarely had to thin my paint. I do keep a lot of paper towels on hand though, and regularly clean out my brushes every fifteen minutes or so.
Do you have several different shaped and sized paint brushes? I found it easier to have 2-3 of each type in a carousel, to cycle through, especially when you’ve got a dozen or more colours going on 🙂 It cuts down so much on time cleaning the one brush, as well as prevent panic attacks when you’vd made a mistake and urgently need to patch up an error.
I also used a Wilton cake turner as it made it ao easy to turn the statue without having to touch it, as well as elevating it to a better height. I like the Wilton as it had a rubber ring that helped grip the statue, and the lock lets you stop it from turning.
I started with DecoArt Americana, but moved onto Golden and never looked back!
I also strongly recommend testing paints, and colours on top of colours, on the bottom where you stick the felt pad on, if you cannot get a Muse to test paint on. I found that some colours can be horrible when overlayed another colour, the hard way.
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