Dina Wakley Paint Performance Experiments

Today I wanted to show you how the paint reacts on cardstock, gesso and what it looks like mixed with the Gel Medium.  All of these experiments were conducted on Mixed Media paper.

This is what it looks like right out of the tube.  It's got a creamy thick consistency that holds it's shape well.

I used a paint brush to mix it about in a somewhat thicker layer because I wanted to see how well it held it's shape and what the brush strokes looked like once dry.    The blob on the right hand side of the photo is where I smeared it around with my finger.  

The brush strokes did stay in the paint quite nicely.  It held it's shape where I left it in peaks.  The only issue I had was it took quite a while to dry in the thicker areas.  I smooshed a couple of the peaks testing to see if they were dry yet.  I didn't speed drying at all with a heat tool because I wanted to see just how long it took.  These peaks took approx. 6-8 hours to dry.  

This photo shows the paint over a layer of dried gesso.  The brush strokes were much more evident and the blob on the left side was where I smeared it around with my finger.  It's a nice solid opaque layer.  I also noticed that the paint is more glossy when painted over a gessoed surface as opposed to the plain paper.

Next I wanted to see what the paint looked like when mixed with some of the gel medium.  I just started with a small scoop of the medium and a squirt of the paint.  Mixed with the knife and smeared it around a bit.

This example is on plain paper.  It's got great coverage, lots of detail and a bit of dimension. The first thing I noticed was the paint took a really long time to dry when mixed with the gel medium...the thicker areas took about 10+ hours to dry.

I repeated this experiment on a gessoed surface.  I got lots more dimension and a deeper color as well.   Since the paint didn't soak into the paper but sat on the surface of the gesso it took even longer to dry.  Even after 24 hours the thicker dimensional areas still felt rubbery and easily dented when I lightly pressed my nail into the surface.  

You can see in this photo the amazing dimension achieved with the gessoed surface and the paint being mixed with the gel medium....

I hope these little experiments give you a little insight to these fun new paints.