"Moonfall" (6 of 25)

8x8", acrylic and mixed media on board, SOLD

(#6 of 25 for the 20/20 show) This one had more washes and quieter colors than others. And it continued the technique of putting down patching paste and pushing mesh into it. And using metallic gold, which never photographs well.

So I'm doing some experimenting. As you might know, I like to play with effects using hardware store supplies. They work, they're cheap, and they can be long lasting if you choose material used on house exteriors. But official painting supplies can be nice, too. They're way more expensive, but can give you a different effect. So it depends on what you want. For instance, if I want to cover a lot of area with texture, I don't want to worry about cost, and Golden pumice gels are expensive! But I might find a specific application where Golden products works better.

Here's an example. I'm testing cocktail umbrellas. Seriously, I want to see how to attach them to a board. (Maybe I should post pictures of this.) So I tried five substances. Four of them hold quite well.

One interesting comparison was patching paste vs. Golden's hard molding paste. And I like the molding paste better. Why? Because it dries transparent. I also tried matte gel and like that, too, since it dries transparent. The patching paste and heavy gesso (I get Utrecht in big buckets, so it's cheap) work well, but dry white. That could be useful if you want to paint over the cocktail umbrellas, though. Maybe next I'll try clear gesso.

So, yep, it depends on what you want.

I still haven't experimented enough with tinting the material before I use it. Maybe that's next.