Painting mediums in general can also be a bit expensive, so if you’re on a budget or new to making art you might want to try out other ways of creating texture before investing in these products and potentially not liking them. I would recommend investing in just one of these that sounds the most interesting to you instead of getting all of them at once.
Artist Tips: My Favorite Tools to Create Texture
As you may have seen with many of my pieces on this site and on Instagram I love adding texture to my paintings. Texture, especially in abstract art, is very important in conveying themes, adding interest, and creating depth in your painting. So I’ve compiled a short list of some of my favorite tools and techniques I use to achieve texture in my paintings.
Any products mentioned or linked in this post are NOT sponsored and I don’t get anything if you purchase from these links. I genuinely like and use these products and want to share them with you.
Palette Knives:
Classic Palette Knife
As you can see from the many built up layers of paint I use this knife a lot. It’s a Liquitex Professional Painting Knife Small in #5 and I mainly use it to lay down large areas of color when I begin a painting. I feel that palette knives help spread the color around better than brushes if you’re just trying to get some initial color down. I also use it to build up color and make areas that are thicker than others. It’s also great for mixing paint and putting gel medium on canvas since it’s easier to clean than a brush. Overall, this is just a solid artist tool that I come back to again and again. They also have knives in the same shape as this but a larger size. Since I mainly work with medium to small canvases this size works fine for me. But if you do larger paintings I might get one in a larger size.
Worison Palette knives:
I got these as a gift for Christmas and have been loving them ever since! They came in a set of 9 but I mainly use numbers 1, 2 and 3 (as you can probably tell by the amount of paint on them). These palette knives have a lot of unique shapes to them compared with the traditional palette knife and create really interesting textures. I like to use then for scraped or scratched texture, but they can be used for a lot more. Below I’ve shown an example of some of the textures that can be created with them.
Natural & Synthetic Sponges:
I use a variety of sponges in my work to add texture but the ones I use the most are the sea wool sponge (middle and bottom left) and the synthetic round sponge (top left and bottom right). These are a relatively cheap and easy way to start adding texture to your work. The sea wool sponge is great for stippling and blending two colors together. I especially like to use it in my galaxy paintings to combine the colors for the sky. The synthetic round sponge gives a more subtle texture and I’ve also used it as a stamp for print designs. Also when used with acrylic inks as opposed to heavy body acrylics it gives a bubbly, watercolor effect that’s really interesting.
Some downsides to sponges are that with each use they disintegrate slightly, especially if you’re like me and are a little rough on them when cleaning. So I wouldn’t get too attached to any one sponge since you won’t have it forever. They can also get mold or mildew if not taken care of properly, so always remember to wash and fully dry your sponge between uses to keep mold from growing.
Ways to incorporate texture into acrylic paint
Plaster is my super secret weapon of choice when it comes to texture building. In fact, it is so good and effective, that I have often been asked not to share this trade secret with my students (when I teach at some art stores), for fear that they would buy the plaster instead of the products at the art store.
Plaster is a Hardware store product that I often use to replace Modeling/Molding Paste because it yields the same results for a fraction of the cost.
If you would like to know how I use plaster, read my blog post titled: Gel Medium VS Modeling Paste. Everything I say about Modeling Paste applies to plater as well.
The one thing to keep in mind is that plaster is a product made to fill nail holes in the walls, not a canvas. Walls are an inflexible surface whereas canvases are a flexible surface. Any ideas as to what happens when we use plaster on a canvas? You guessed it. It’s a lot like painting on an elastic band. The plaster tends to crack. Personally, I do not consider this a bad thing as long as the plaster does not crack and fall off the canvas. We can prevent this from happening by mixing a 50/50 Plaster/Gel Medium mixture to make the paste more malleable.
Also, keep in mind that anytime we use items than were not “meant” for the canvas, we open ourselves up to “funky” things happening on the canvas. Personally I find this a blessing, not a curse. In my experience, experimentation and making your own rules is a powerful way to make new discoveries. The choice is yours, either stick to the products the paint company has made for you, or invite the element of experimentation and surprise into your work. I highly suggest you chose the latter.
Interestingly, Modeling Paste (which is an item created by the paint company) also cracks as it dries much like the plaster does. However, if you want to stick to the products the paint company has made for you, perhaps a product like Flexible Modeling Paste is a good choice because it yields less cracks.
Modeling/Molding Paste comes in many viscosities including: Regular, Light, Hard, Flexible & Course. Having used all of these products, I still prefer either the regular Modeling paste or plaster. I find that with plaster, Gel Medium and a handful of sand/salt/sawdust, I can create my own DIY versions of all of these products.
My personal favorite Hardware plaster products include: Spackling Paste by DAP.
Watch out for this product: My least favorite plaster product is called Dry Dex Spackling: Goes On Pink! by DAP. You can imagine why this would be a fantastic choice when you are filling nail holes in the walls (because it indicates drying time by changing color). It’s not so great when you are working with pink plaster and acrylic paint at the same time, because it’s confusing.
