We are searching data for your request:
Upon completion, a link will appear to access the found materials.
Q. At an art supply convention a while back, I bought some acrylic interference paint. It seemed so easy to use and the results looked great, but now I realize that I dont know how to use it. Can you help?
Juanita Knox
Lakewood, CA
A. Interference pigments are also sometimes called “pearlescent” or “iridescent” pigments, although since they work by interfering with light waves, thus causing the color, “interference” is the most accurate name. These pigments are not particles but flakes of mica, usually coated with a microscopically thin layer of titanium dioxide pigment. When ground into a paint vehicle, these flakes will simultaneously reflect and transmit light, causing a colored appearance thats dependent on how the flakes are positioned toward the light source, the thickness of the paint film, and the refraction in the flakes themselves. The various colors (which can be red, yellow, green, blue, and some hues in between, like purple) come from the strengthening or weakening of light waves, and not any inherent color as in a normal pigment. These pigments were originally found mostly in the acrylic emulsion paints, but are now appearing in such media as oil crayons.
Interference colors arent strong. Theyre intended to have an effect on other colorsto add a pearly sheen or luminosityinstead of being used by themselves. In fact, youll notice that if you look at a pile of this paint, it appears to be a gray, featureless blob with only a hint of color (unless the manufacturer has mixed in another pigment). To give interference colors their best effect, mix them into another color, perhaps of the same hue but also of other hues, to enhance the second colors appearance. If you want to use an interference color aloneeven though its very transparenttry it first against a dark background to see how it works. Typically, interference paints show up best when set against dark colors.
The same basic rules of thumb apply to these colors as for any color mixing:
- Decide whether you want the mix to be warm or cool;
- If you have to mix more than two colors (plus white), youre likely to end up with a muddy mixture; and, most important
- No verbal explanation, color reproduction or demonstration is ever going to provide you with the answers that trying it out for yourself will.
With these specialty pigments, Ill add a fourth caveat: Dont overdo it. Youll risk disabling a good painting idea for nothing more than a special effect.
There are other colors made using the same principles as interference colors, including pigments that look like bronze, copper or brass, but that are made of the same mica flakes coated with thin films of various mineral or iron oxide pigments. Paints made with these pigments can look remarkably like the actual metal, but they wont discolor due to oxidation and age as the metallic pigments do. Ive used these pigments in a painting, but the effect is so subtle (deliberately) that they can only be seen in a certain light.
Mark Gottsegen is an associate professor of art at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
I'm waiting for the continuation of the post ...;)
Also what from this follows?
Very valuable idea
remarkably, the useful room
wise is not the one who knows a lot, but the one whose knowledge is useful =)
Amazing theme, very enjoyable :)