Acrylic Texture Demo - Elaine Hatch

I had a wonderful time at last weeks demo on acrylic texture with Elaine Hatch. She is quite a character and seems to break every rule while creating wonderful art. The thing I found most refreshing is that she builds layer on layer on layer with utter abandon, knowing that it will dry quickly and if she isn't happy with the effect it's easily changed. "Embrace your mistakes" she says.

Elaine starts with dotting around some color and spreading it with her hands. she uses a water spray to help spread and mix the paint. She doesn't wear gloves because she Prefers the effect without them (I personally don't recommend this for many reasons). Elaine is a totally intuitive painter and doesn't plan a color scheme, but she does limit the number of colors.

The next step is to coat the canvas with lavish amounts of gel medium and layer on media; aluminum foil is a favourite, net, lace, fabric scraps, cupcake cups, cheesecloth, paper, cake doilies, etc. She says that fabric and net sticks better if it has some paint on it, so she wipes her messy hands on the scraps. This will all get covered so it doesn't matter what it is. No particular plan. Every layer has gel medium top and bottom, so after several layers the canvas is stiff with gel and media.

TIPS
1. If paint is dry spritz with water before adding paint.
2. Have a bucket of water to rinse hands which is better for drains.
3. If you want to remove some paint try soap and water, wipe up with paper towel and spritz with clean water to remove all soap.
4. You can also use rubbing alcohol and paper towel.
5. Fluid or ink looks great on top of foil as a top layer.
6. Krinkle paper, tissue paper and foil for better effect.
7. Use thicker paint on lower layers and ink, fluid or high flow on upper layers.
8. Prismacolor Nupastels are also good for upper layer and can be mixed And spread with water.
9. Dap Dry Dex can be used on upper layers when there is a good stiff painting below. Make sure you envelop in gel medium to prevent cracking. You can stamp, write and press things into it and it holds its shape.

Next Elaine showed us how to make skins. Use freezer paper or deli paper, which is like brown paper with one shiny side. on the dull side put a cross of masking tape which stops it curling. Put some pouring medium in a paper or plastic cup and mix in some Golden fluid paint. Mix completely or loosely and pour onto shiny side of paper. The white medium goes clear when dry. You can pick up the paper and move the paint around, spread it with a tool, make stringy bits, but it self levels as it dries. Experiment. Make another pour with a different color and pour over first. Add beads, glitter, objects, sand, rocks, seeds, etc. Don't be afraid to try anything. Pebeo Prisme Fantasy makes some cool effects. Allow to set and use them as the fancy takes you. You can punch shapes into them when dry. Adhere to your paintings with more gel medium. These would usually be in your top layer.

When you are happy with your mixed media piece, finish with a coat of Golden glaze.