Acrylic Flow Release medium

Acrylic Flow Release is one of the paint additives created by Golden Artist Colors that I had yet to play around with. I knew only vaguely what it was for and I suspected that once I understood what it was capable of doing, it could very well be something that I might find useful in my own art. I did some reading on Golden's website and watched a few videos before I decided to experiment on my own. Below is a product description straight from Golden. If you'd like to read more or watch a video demonstrating it's use, you can follow the link here.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

GOLDEN Acrylic Flow Release is a surfactant. A surfactant is a concentrated surface-active liquid which reduces surface tension, thus improving wetting and increasing the flow of acrylic waterborne paints.

A surfactant is used several ways in acrylic paint making. Surfactants are used to "wet out" pigments to ease their introduction into an acrylic resin, medium or gel. They can also be added to thinner paint mixtures, such as stains, to help reduce surface tension.

Acrylic Flow Release is very useful for staining techniques, as it dramatically reduces the surface tension between the stain (paint/water) and the support. Certain supports, especially raw canvas, are inherently water repelling in nature and require the use of such a surface-active agent to allow the stain to wet and penetrate into the support.

 I decided to try the technique of mixing the  Flow Release with water and using it to coat the canvas before I poured on the paint for a wet-on-wet application.

Next I used Golden's airbrush paint for the color wash since it is already watered down to a very fluid consistency, perfect for staining effects.

To demonstrate how the paint reacts to the Flow-Release/water mixture I splashed a few drop of the paint onto my canvas. The dab of paint on the bottom was applied over the Flow Release and the dab of paint on the top is without Flow Release. As you can see, the Acrylic Flow Release dramatically brakes the surface tension and allows the paint to wet-out and absorb into the canvas instantaneously instead of balling up as usual. 

HOLY SCIENCE! ;-) 

Notice the bubbles in my Flow Release mixture above? This was caused by stirring the Flow Release into the water too vigorously. Next time I will be more careful to prevent this from happening. I tend to always do things the wrong way the first time around. This is how I learn, because reading the directions is just too painful!

Next I covered the entire canvas in my Flow Release mixture and then proceeded to squirt generous amounts of magenta, yellow and white airbrush paint over the top.

Lastly, I used the end of a brush to swirl the colors all together, sort of creating a marbled effect as you can see. I then lifted the canvas and rotated it, allowing the paint to drip and spread out until it covered the whole surface area.

I LOVE how it turned out and I think this is a fantastic way to create an interesting base for a painting and I'm sure i'll be using this technique again soon.

Here is an up-close of the marbled paint. After everything, all I had to do was lay it flat to dry untouched... which is easier said than done when you live with a two year old. I would show you the finished product but needless to say, it now has the addition of several finger prints, scratches and even part of a foot print  (not even joking). 

Hopefully you found this little experiment of mine useful, and if not, I hope it at least inspired you to experiment with a new medium you've never explored before. I was really fascinated with what I could do using the Flow Release medium and I'm sure i'll be using it again in the future. A couple of things that I think are very important to be aware of with this product is to remember that it is VERY concentrated and your paints will become tacky and unable to dry completely if you add too much, so use the proper mixing ratio that is stated on the label. Also, remember not to mix too vigorously! Nobody wants to deal with those pesky bubbles in their art.

Happy painting &

Thanks for reading!

-Heather @ IBF