Applications & Techniques:
Acrylic Grounds with Patti Brady, Director
Working Artists Program

There are numerous and varied effects that one can create by painting on prepared acrylic textural grounds. Varying the absorbency, the size of the grit (particulate matter) and slickness or hardness of surface will enhance your work. In addition to using grounds to create texture, you can also add any color of choice for tinted grounds. All grounds were applied to a heavy board. Any surface that has some thickness to it will work - canvas, watercolor paper, illustration board or masonite.

Acrylic Grounds for Pastels
GOLDEN designed this product for pastel artists. It is also a wonderful surface to paint on. It is much like GOLDEN Matte Medium, but manufactured with an abundance of a finer grind of silica. The ground must be thinned with approximately 20% water, and for this example I tinted it with a few drops of GOLDEN Fluid Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold. It was brushed out with a very soft flat brush. When dry, I used Fluids thinned with water in a watercolor fashion. Using very wet washes, you can create a velvet quality to the wash. Controlling the amount of water in your brush and using it very dry will allow you to do very tight detail.

Molding Paste
GOLDEN Molding Paste is a thick gel mixed with a finely ground marble dust. The marble imparts a hardness to the dry surface and quite a bit of weight. When mixed with color, it will create a tint. Molding Paste dries white and is opaque.

In the example GOLDEN Molding Paste has been applied with a palette knife, spread over the surface leaving the texture of the knife. Mixing the Molding Paste with GOLDEN Iridescent Stainless Steel paint produces the lightly speckled gray surface. GOLDEN Fluids were thinned with water and applied in a thin watercolor like fashion to the dry surface. Because the Molding Paste is a fairly slick surface (not porous) the paint sits up on the surface, puddling (note the sky) and creating a look quite different from painting on a more absorbent surface like watercolor paper.

Light Molding Paste
GOLDEN Light Molding Paste is a unique and unusual product that offers an array of interesting possibilities. A "space-age" microscopic air bubble replaces the marble dust in the Molding Paste. This material gives the Light Molding Paste a "fluffy" consistency similar to cake frosting or whipped cream. It is white and fairly opaque in color

In this example the Light Molding Paste is applied with a palette knife, spread as if frosting a cake. Again the ridges left by the palette knife add interest to the texture. When dry, the surface is "wildly absorbent". GOLDEN Fluids thinned with water were applied to a dampened surface. The color spreads quickly and loosely, creating beautiful bleeds. Because of the extreme porosity of this ground, you have a long working time. If your painting gets out of control, blot the color up with a paper towel. When this application dries, you can go back in a drier paintbrush and apply a more detailed stroke.