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Can I lighten an acrylic background without spoiling the effect?
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Message
Posted
I've been asked to do a 180cmx60cm abstract for a boardroom wall based on Eilean Donan castle in Scotland. I've never done a painting this big before but decided to do a 'smooth' background with a thicker, impasto design of the castle, bridge etc in the centre. I've had a problem in the hot weather with the background paint drying too fast (even using matt medium and slow drying medium and then resorting to spraying with water) so have ended up having to compensate by using thicker layers rather than thin washes, but this has made it too dark. I like the effect ('cloudy', mottled, blurred) but am not sure how to lighten it. I have used my favourite colours: ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, alizarin crimson, permanent rose. I am worried if I lighten the tones by adding white, the colours will change too much. Should I just paint over with white and start again? Or is there a way of lightening the whole thing, or at least areas of it whilst keeping the blurred effect? Would really appreciate any feedback.
Posted
It would help if you could show a picture of this. Generally, the only way to lighten previously applied colour in acrylic is to apply lighter colour over the top, and this is likely to mean (depending on the colours used) employing white - but while Zinc White, the transparent white available to us, is problematic to use in oil, it's quite safe in acrylic. So you could try applying Zinc White thinly, reduced with water or medium; you could add a little colour to it as well - eg, if the background were Permanent Rose, you could tint the Zinc White with that. Winsor and Newton do make another white - a mixing white; but this is likely to be less effective in this case than using Zinc.
It's certainly feasible to just paint out the dark background with acrylic gesso and start again, but if you used strong brush-strokes in the original they might present a rather bumpy surface for the gesso. If you didn't, there shouldn't be a problem.
Posted
There we are, we both say white - just different ones. But I don't suppose Syd or I would fight over the choice, either would achieve a result.
Point is - white is one of the few ways we have to lighten things tonally - adding lightened colour, or laying down a white base and starting again. You could try a yellow, or a lighter blue or red depending on what colours you're trying to lighten; in this case I'm presuming you want a lighter blue than the one you've got, and as you're using acrylic you'd probably find the cerulean, perhaps mixed with a little cobalt and heightened with white, would give you what you're after.
Posted
Yes, I tried W & N's Mixing White, in the old Finity range - still have a very small quantity - it's a peculiar colour, isn't it? I presume it is zinc, although I'm not sure.... it has a sort of gel consistency, and partly consists of transparent material, so it doesn't have much effect on colour but enables you (particularly in painting flesh) to add what I can only describe as a bridging effect between tones. Actually, I've just taken a look in the acryic paintbox - it's actually Titanium Dioxide, PW6, in an acrylic polymer - don't know if that actually tells us much.... and I've had it so long it's hardening in the tube, so clearly not an over-used pigment.... It was useful for portrait painting though, so if I do that again I'll have to ditch the half-dried tube and buy another.
It wouldn't be the right paint for the purpose joannew15 has in mind: especially as it has more gloss than most acrylic paints - it extends colour, but doesn't appreciably lighten it. I presume W & N still make it, in their current acrylic range.