Pumice Gel

His Majesty, Ringo I, mixed media

Blog 12

The first two weeks of this month, I wrote about two different pastes. This week's blog is about Pumice Gel, a gel I love because of its texture. I played around with it on a couple of experimental pieces before I used it for my painting “His Majesty, Ringo I”.

Gels use the same acrylic polymers as acrylic paint. Aside from Pumice Gel, they are excellent adhesives for collage and mixed media pieces, have excellent flexibility and show a resistance to chemicals, water and ultraviolet radiation. Gels can be used to increase the transparency, extend paint, and change the consistency of the acrylic paint (e. g. Extra Heavy Gel) and change finishes (gloss, semi-gloss or matte).

When working with gels, mix your colour first before adding the gel as the gel is white but dries clear. Unlike all the other gels that are colourless, Pumice Gel is opaque. Basically, it is pumice (volcanic lava) added to a gel medium.

Pumice Gels are made with real pumice solids and thick gels. You can buy three different varieties: fine, coarse and extra coarse. They all dry to rough granular grey films that are hard, opaque, and absorbent. They mix well with acrylic paint.

Fine Pumice Gel is perfect to create finely textured surfaces which can be used as a drawing ground for pastels, charcoal and graphite. Coarse Pumice Gel and Extra Coarse Pumice Gel create more coarse textures that look like concrete.

The New Planet, acrylic on coarse pumice gel

To increase flexibility, the Pumice Gel can be mixed with other gels and mediums. If you apply paint on the coarse and extra coarse dried pumice films, you get the appearance of dry brushing.

I hope this month's look at different products has sparked your curiosity. I encourage you to try something different, even if you just play with different products. This is not only fun but will keep you growing your skills. You might find out that you love some but do not really see any use of others in your artworks. You could get an introductory Gel Mediums and Molding Pastes to start in order to avoid spending too much money.

Have you already tried any gels or pastes in your artworks? Would you be interested in attending a workshop to try them out? You can either leave a comment or send me an email to kpeters@domingoinformatics.ca.