Acrylic Illuminations

Intensify color or add subtle color shifts with interference glazes, to create unusual refractive coloring and surfaces.

Materials List

Paint

One or more acrylic paint colors, one or more interference colors

Substrate

Any primed painting surface

Tools

Painting knife or other mixing tool, mixing palette or cups, soft flat paintbrush

Products

Slow drying acrylic gloss medium

For Cleanup

Paper towels or rags, water, water container

Brush apply paint colors smoothly on a painting surface to create an underpainting. A simple landscape is used for this demonstration but any underpainted image will work. Let it dry.

Mix up several glaze colors that relate to the underlying colors in the underpainting. For example, this blue interference glaze will be used to enhance the blue sky.

Start your glaze mixture with a generous amount of a slow-drying acrylic gloss medium on a mixing palette or container. To this add an equal amount of an interference paint. Add a small amount of paint color (1:10 paint-to-mixture ratio) selecting a similar but darker version of the interference color. For instance, this mixture consists of 1 ounce Interference Blue (Fine), 1 ounce slow-drying acrylic gloss medium, and one drop of fluid Anthraquinone Blue. Mix well. Repeat for more mixtures of glaze colors.

Brush apply each glaze color over the selected area, keeping the glaze application smooth by frequently removing excess paint onto a rag or paper towel and continuing to spread out the glaze into a thin application. When working with glazes, it is better to first apply a glaze that is not as intense as you like than one that is too heavy. You can always apply additional layers when dry to build up to the desired intensity.

Ideas

To add texture to this technique, make a textured underpainting by applying heavy bodied paints with a knife. Then, in Step 2 substitute a gloss gel for the gloss medium to mix glazes, and knife apply thickly over the underpainting.
These glazes can also be used in opposing fashion to contrast (i.e. choosing a red interference glaze to go over the blue sky instead would shift the sky to an unusual violet color).

Finished Example

In addition to the Interference Blue glaze over the sky, a glaze of Interference Red (Fine) with a touch of Quinacridone Crimson overlays the mountains, and a glaze of Interference Green with a touch of Jenkins Green overlays the bottom green foliage.

On a red background, the ribbon shapes are painted first in black, then glazed with Interference Gold. The underlying black enhances the interference color.

TECHNIQUE 22

Overglow Sheens

Materials List

Ideas

Finished Example