Is there something I can make from household products to mimic the same effect as matte medium from liquitex?

Question

I am referring to painting with acrylics. It was recommnded to me that there are better mediums to mix with acrylics than water. Something that will keep the paint from being too runny, easier to work with without losing control of the paint & without losing the color. Is there something I can use from regular household items to simulate this effect without purchasing a specific medium?

Answer 1

I use Gum Arabic or thinner to change the consistency and vibrancy. I have never heard of any common household items you could use...but both the things I use are fairly cheap.

Answer 2

As usual Ted this is another problem for which I have a serious and economically prudent answer to as I have experienced something similar with an old girlfriend ... I don't mean she was 'old' I mean an ex girlfriend from a long time ago. Like your wife, she always wanted and 'needed' expensive care products and I too was unwilling to spend the ridiculous money that these beauty product manufactures demanded. Here are a few tips as to how I got round the problem. Mascara: an expensive product. I simply got one of her expended tubes of mascara and re-filled it with shoe polish, re-boxed it and gave it to her for a gift. To this day she has no idea. Foundation cream: another costly 'can't do without' accessory. Again, just find an old tub and fill it with pile cream (about a tenth of the cost of foundation cream) and repeat the process as described above - I guarantee on this one that she will not only know what you've done but remark at the improvement (pile cream reduces wrinkles etc). Hair shampoo: branded products are expenses so again, look for the empty bottles and keep them. You can get a huge 20 litre tub of dog shampoo for a fraction of the cost from a wholesale outlet - like the one you used to work for ...... wait ...... don't go there for it - best choose another store. For all of the above procedures you can disguise the smell by grating in some scented candle wax and the same procedure can be used successfully for the rectal bleaching process. Use any good quality household bleach and grate in some scented candle wax. There is a slight problem here in that you don't have an old bottle of the proper stuff to re-use but that's not a big problem. Simply do an image search for the product and you can produce a hard copy picture - cut out the label and stick it on the bleach bottle. And your suggestion of disguising the process in a blindfolded oil massage is pure excellence ... I can't improve on that idea. Hope this helps. I was just curious as the whether you have sealed that business deal you were working on?

Answer 3

Not unless you keep high-quality acrylic polymers around your house.

I would seriously advise against adulterating your paints with unknown substances. No telling what they could look like over time. And gum arabic is a component of watercolor. It's water-soluble, but I'm not sure it's really the ideal substance to put into plastic.

I would buy the acrylic medium. If that's not possible this weekend, continue using a little bit of water to thin.

Answer 4

Using water to mix with acrylics breaks down the binders and separates the pigment.

Fini is a glaze medium that you can use to mix with acrylics And is totally matte.

http://we-r-art.biz/products.php?cat=130

About the fourth product down the page

Answer 5

Helene is 100% correct.

http://www.notthetate.co.uk/lizzie

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