Acrylic Painting – Playing with Modeling Paste

I’ve been wanting to experiment with more texture in my painting projects. Not that I don’t appreciate a smooth canvas, but adding a little something more appeals to me. So I picked up a small container of modeling paste from a local art shop and tried a few experiments to see what I could come up with.

If you aren’t familiar with it, the modeling paste can be mixed with acrylic paints and applied to a canvas with any tool. I used palette knives and a drywall knife. Once it dries, it’s nearly as hard as concrete. Although, a bit nicer to look at.

What I like about it is that I can mix different colors into it and, once dry, it doesn’t buckle the canvas. While it’s still wet, I can carve into it, spread it around in different ways, or even sand it down. It gave me a lot of options to try.

This first canvas is a mix of brush and palette knife. I painted the background, then used the palette knife and some of the modeling clay to create the yellow texture slashing across the canvas. I like the mix of colors, angles, and movement.

The next one is an interesting mix. I first used black acrylic and some of the past to create a solid background, then went over that with titanium white and past. Once that dried, I went over it again with a mix of colors using a short palette knife. It’s both bright and dark, and the texture rising up from behind gives it a cool effect.

This one was a “don’t think, just throw whatever on the canvas” experiment. I was attempting to capture movement and a bit of a rainbow effect. I painted a dark red background (crimson, I believe), put plain modeling paste on the canvas, then used a couple of different knives to both etch arcs into the paste and create the color swipes. Nothing fancy, but it was fun.

I was trying to capture fire in this last practice piece. I used phthalo blue with a lot of water as the background, then played around with mixing a few different luminescent colors into the paste and swiping them onto the canvas. I really like how this turned out. Sort of ethereal, I think, and the colors pop against that dark background.

I hope you enjoyed my acrylic experiments. There will be more soon as I’m also experimenting with collage and alternative painting tools. 

RB