Glazing Over the Spackling Texture on your Mixed-Media Painting

Most of our second mixed media class was about creating textures with spackling, with the remainder being about glazing and then dry-brushing over the plaster/spackling textures.

Here is the glazing process:

First apply acrylic medium over the plaster/spackling texture and let dry.
Mix up colours with either acrylic medium or ‘glazing’ medium, and run the colours over the spackling texture.
It is important to cover every single last bit of the whitish spackling to keep the white bits from distracting the eye.
If you do not coat it with medium first the colours to be will be sucked into the spackling (see below). Be aware that this is a completely different effect, and will have a lot of potentially distracting white texture.

how not to glaze over plaster texture — how NOT to *glaze* over plaster texture

Below I used a coloured glaze, a mix of medium and paint (Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Red), and applied it over the spackling texture with a fairly soft brush.

Holyman with purples, blues and pink glazes — holyman with purples, blues and quinacridone red glazes over the plaster texture

thalo blue, dioxanene purple and liquid acrylic colours on textures separated by masking tape — thalo blue, dioxanene purple and liquid acrylic colours on textures previously separated by masking tape

Most of the ‘original’ mineral pigments tend to be fairly opaque, and need a fair amount of medium added in order to use them as glazes.

For transparent blacks Jeanne suggested we use Bone Black (also known as Ivory Black); for transparent whites, Zinc White.

The newer chemical colours, with chemical-sounding names such as Quinacridone Red, Dioxazine Purple and Thalo (Phthalocyanine) Blue (or Green), thin out while holding colour intensity and make excellent glazes.

‘Fluid’ or ‘Liquid’ acrylics (these descriptors depend on brand) work especially well when you want to use a more opaque mineral colour like Burnt Sienna or Raw Umber. Below is a glazing mix consisting of Sepia, similar to Burnt Umber but transparent (by Golden), and Payne’s Grey (by DeSerres). Note that there are many other brands available.

sepia and payne's grey 'fluid' acrylic glaze on sand spackle — Sepia and Payne’s Grey ‘fluid’ acrylic glazes on medium-coated sand/spackle mix

Multiple layers of glaze add depth to a painting.

The thing that I’m finding most difficult about working with glazes is that you start with a colour that is lighter and different from the colour you finish with and the layers build up via ‘optical’ mixing. For example, you might start with a blue, then add multiple layers of yellow that will ultimately turn the colour into a very rich green. It’s COMPLICATED! There are a lot of things to try out and experience here…