Wirral Open Studios

If you go to Jackson's online store, or have a look at the Winsor and Newton, Daler-Rowney, Chromacolour UK, Liquitex, Golden Acrylic sites, and generally websites which specialize in or sell and describe acrylics, you'll find a range of mediums and additives which can be used to bulk out acrylic, add texture, even alter the sheen of the paint itself.<div> </div><div>What you're specifically talking about in your question is usually called texture paste, or texture gel, or thickening gel or medium (depending on who makes it).  It can be applied with a palette-knife or painting-knife, with a brush (the usual advice about making sure you don't let anything dry on the brush applies, of course), with fingers, with bits of card, with a pen-knife, tooth-pick, cocktail-stick, splinter of wood, match-stick - just about anything that gets the effect you're after. </div><div> </div><div>I don't know that I'd risk the wrath of whoever makes the icing in your house by nicking their piping equipment, because the thing about all acrylic mediums is they dry hard, and are not subsequently moveable: and I know b. all with bells on about making icing, so don't know if you can wash these things satisfactorily.  If you can - well, buy one just for painting and see how you get on with it. </div><div> </div><div>The one thing I'd add from bitter experience is, do be careful where you put the stuff, because it can create ridges in the paint which are very obvious when the light catches them: wherever you apply the additive, it has to mean something, eg, rock, rough stone, wood grain.</div><div> </div><div>And as a final thought, don't forget that some acrylics - the heavy-bodied ones, like Cryla and the full-bodied Golden brand, behave something like oil paint, so you can sculpt the paint itself and make it behave like traditional oil impasto: heavy, thick paint that can model forms as well as show them by tone and drawing with the brush. </div><div> </div><div>www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk </div>

I haven't tried the textured media, but I can certainly recomend the heavy body acrylics, especially if you are using a knife. As to piping - as someone who has decorated cakes, I'd say two things: first, piping nozzles are cheap but VERY difficult to clean and second, the bags are bloomin' difficult to use, so try using some sort of comb instead (maybe a clay modelling tool?).

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<div align="justify">There is nothing wrong with texture paste but do not forget the name of the game is 'Painting', not 'Modelling'. If you are going to use piping bags and the like, you are avoiding the task of 'painting to look like'. A further drawback is you cannot change the texture should you want to at a later stage of the painting without some serious sanding. I would suggest you practise painting hair, rocks, etc. in such a way as to appear to be raised texture but without actually using any body filler. My latest shows plenty of rocks but at no time is the paint thicker than 0.1mm. </div>

Good points about painting vs. modelling - I've read a lot of books and seen a lot of demos where people use crushed egg-shells; sand; texture paste; PVA glue; bits of wood; bits of leaf; grass....  And this is absolutely fine - but I feel about it rather as I feel about masking fluid in watercolour, and probably just as unfairly: how about just - you know - painting?  <div></div><div>It is unfair, because people enjoy using these materials, but I have to say I don't use them (well, I don't HAVE to say, but I just did....) - the reason why is that I've seen painters who get too used to them, always use them, and produce work that is oddly repetitive: as if they've come to depend on these materials rather than using them as occasional indulgences (which is basically what I think they are).  </div><div> </div><div>There was a vogue a while ago, which I hope has now receded, for using gold leaf in acrylic and oil paintings, possibly in watercolour too.  It didn't always look awful, and that's the best I can say for it.  Generally speaking - and of course there are exceptions - I don't want anything getting in the way of the paint, either as substrate or addition.  To me, for example, the crushed egg-shells which one writer told us would look like a stone wall looked, in fact, just like crushed egg-shells.  </div><div> </div><div>I'm probably very conservative about such things - and don't want to spoil anyone's fun: but given the things you can do with paint alone (and that it takes a lifetime to learn how to do them) I can do without some of these optional extras.  Nonetheless, I expect the full weight of disagreement to descend on my lovely head any minute now........</div>