Wondering what methods the acrylic painters use to blend colors. For those who do not know what I’m talking about, mixing paints is when you mix different colors together to form a new color, or it could refer to when you mix up the bottle to make the paint workable.
Blending is where you “blur” the line between different shades of highlight, base and shadow. With oils and enamels, it’s easy because all you have to do is activate the paint with thinner and start blending.
With the fast drying time of acrylics how do you blend the different shades, or even what other methods do you use?
DJ, I’ve got just two words for you; Acrylic Retarder. No, it doesn’t make your paints mentally challenged, [;)] It slows down the drying time and makes your acrylics behave more like oil paints. This product may not be particularly well known in the modeling world, since no hobby shop I’ve ever seen carries it. You need to go to an art supply store to find it. The brand I use is made by Golden Artist Colors and is simply called “Retarder”. Only a drop or two is necessary to dramatically slow your paint’s drying time. Use no more than a 15% retarder to paint ratio, otherwise it may leave the surface tacky. This single product has allowed me to substantially improve my figure painting. Good Luck.
If not layering then a few drops of acrylic retarder work great or I’ve found that airbrush flow enhancer seems to work. While not like enamels or oils, it gives you a few seconds of blend time. The retarder has been the best bet so far. I used to use thin layers and build it up that way but now I’ve switched to acrylics as a base coat and oils for everything else.
Acrylic painters use glazing (layering) to achieve the blending effect instead of actually blending the paint due to the fast drying time. While you can use retarders to slow down the drying time and actually blend acrylic paint, it is better not to use acrylic paints like oil based paints.
Here is an excellent article on using acrylic paints for figure painting:
To me, it seems like even the acrylic painters will resort to using oils for the faces so they can blend the paint. It boils down to two different schools of figure painting when it comes to acrylics and oils.
I mix more than I need since there is always a chance that if I need more, the shades won’t match. So when I mix and want to keep it, I put it into a gallon sized baggie with a wet paper towel under the pallette and it keeps for days!