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So anyone ever use liquitex ultra glossy varnish ? I would like to see a pic of a piece finished with it. I like a glossy finish, but not so much so that it looks cheap.
I have never used retarder, just Golden’s Acrylic Glazing Liquid to extend the working time of the paint and give it a bit of gloss. What does the retarder do differently? Do others on here use that as well?
Retarder just extends the life of paint and thins it a tiny bit (hardly enough to notice!). Without retarder, my paints might last (covered) for about 3 days. With retarder, they can last 2 weeks. On top of that, when your paints are uncovered as you are working with them, the retarder greatly extends their drying time. As far as I have seen, retarder does not add any extra gloss or shine to the finished paint 🙂
So anyone ever use liquitex ultra glossy varnish ? I would like to see a pic of a piece finished with it. I like a glossy finish, but not so much so that it looks cheap.
I use Liquitex High Gloss Varnish for my paint-on varnish. I assume its about the same thing as what you have. It’s very liquidy and you don’t need much on your brush to start painting it on, or it drips everywhere! The flap cat in the following picture has wings that are varnished using this. The fur on the cat was sprayed with a matte topcoat.
You may want to consider spray-on topcoats if you get tired of painting the varnish on. Spray-on topcoats have a distinctly different “feel” to them when they are dry compared to the liquid paint-on varnishes that I’ve used. I prefer the feel of spray-on topcoats when I can use them because (and this is purely my opinion!) they feel more solid, or durable to me. There’s nothing at all wrong with the paint-on kind, it’s just my opinion!
On top of that, the spray-on topcoats dry to the touch within minutes and cure in a day – this means I can take a piece outside (you need lots of ventilation to use the spray-on stuff!), spray my piece, wait 5 minutes and be able to pick the piece up and bring it inside (after a day, the topcoat cures, or hardens as much as it’s going to!). You don’t want to bang them around at this point because they CAN still get nicked and dented, but they are safe to handle gently after a very short period. This makes it really easy for me to spray something and still be able to antique it that day, or varnish certain parts of the sculpture as I like doing with unicorns and flap cats 🙂
Hope this all helps! Here’s the flap cat I was talking about earlier, I tried to find some pictures that showed as best I can the difference in the fur topcoat and the wing topcoat:
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Please visit My Webpage to see my art and PYO's that I've done in the past!Thanks for the tips Hannah ! I actually took my paint on gloss back to the store, and instead got Krylon Low Odor clear gloss spray on varnish. I feel much better about this decision, especially after reading your tips.
I also picked up a few more brushes, although these happen to have longer handles than the first ones I got, Im guessing they will still come in handy. I noticed a set of Golden fluid acrylics…. man they looked so awesome! Maybe someday I will get these as well, lol !
In the mean time I did buy a bottle of Golden Iridescent Gold (fine) , and was thinking this may be pretty for accents on some pieces. I was wondering though, what do people use to get that really nice gold shine to pieces such as horns etc? Im guessing the stuff I got isnt the same as this?
…. Still waiting on my parcel of PYO’s ….. any day now! I hate waiting… lol
Finally got my PYO sculpts today after waiting 2+ weeks, lol ! So exciting opening the box!
As you can see, my new fuzzy was just as excited as me to open the boxes! He wanted to help introduce his new buddies! He is also quickly making himself at home 😛
Wow – the Muse comes packed in a coffee cup? I had no idea! Too funny!
Have fun painting!
A Dixie cup so you can cover it when not working on it…
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http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmNice pieces you ordered! You had asked about the gold above that is used on accents and Windstone uses DecoColour Liquid Gold paint pens for those accents and horns and wing edges and things. They sent me a couple almost used up ones to touch up a couple pieces I have where the gold rubbed of the edges. When I use them though, I don’t put the pen right on the piece because if you accidentally press too hard, you will get gold all over your piece which I accidentally did with a wing on one of my emerald dragons and then had to send away to get professionally repainted as I couldn’t get it off the wing. So I put a little of it on my pallet and dip a brush it to paint it on a piece. It is super sticky though and doesn’t wash off brushes and pallets well so if I am doing larger accents rather than touch ups I just use acrylic metallic gold paint. I bought like 4 different brands of gold and compared the colours to the gold on my production pieces and I use just whichever shade I like the best on pyos. Michaels may or may not sell the gold pens depending on where you live as in my local store they had other colours of pens but not gold so I would say unless you are touching up gold on a production piece and want the pen to match, I would just use a gold acrylic paint and do 2-4 layers of paint on horns, claws and accents.
Looking for rainbow or pink & teal grab bags!
Ceramics are a great way to practice! I actually started painting as a kid by taking ceramics classes, and it’s a really handy way to learn about different paint types, brushes, and the way ceramics are made! Acrylics, glazes, paints for greenware that can be fired… blending paints… brush shapes and effects (drybrushing, broad brushes, slim brushes, shaped brushes)… the basic tricks for creating depth or a lifelike appearance on different textures — you can practice all that on ceramic pieces for much less than a PYO.
It’s given me a lot of knowledge that I don’t even have to really think about at the age I am now; I can just intuit that I need to drybrush *this* bit to make it look like *that*, and use a wash to give depth to the fine texture, or hey, I think this isn’t working because my brush shape is wrong – what if I tried a slanted brush instead of a flat?
I bet you’ll have tons of fun in addition to building skills that will serve you well with PYO projects!
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