Manipulating acrylics on a surface can be interesting and rewarding, resulting in delightful effects by using such tools as various brushes, palette knife, old credit card, razor blade, and even an icepick, as well as, almost anything you can imagine that might give you an effect you wish to portray by scraping, scratching and abrading.
A palette knife is an excellent tool for scraping. You can use the tip for linear effects and broad sweeps can be made using the edge. Credit cards can be used creating very similar impressions. Razor blades are useful for acrylics on paper when you want to scrape down to the under painting or wish to use it for abrading.
Tip: It is best that scraping be done while the paint is wet and on a paper surface that can remain unsaturated for an extended period.
Tip: Acrylics dry quickly limiting the time during which scraping can be done successfully so, if scraping is attempted on gessoed canvas and panels, it works best with thick paint applications that will take longer to dry.
Scratching is another technique that an artist using acrylic paints can select to give a very similar effect to scraping. A good tool to use for this technique is a utility knife, single edge razor blade, or other sharp pointed blade. It is best to use this technique on hardboard primed with acrylic gesso. By scratching through color, you can produce brilliant strokes and fine lines.
Tip: Does not work well in thick layers of paint.
Tip: Most effective when used to texture thin washes of color.
Abrading can leave small highlights flickering all through your paining. It can draw out certain areas in which you wish to peak the interest of your viewer. Artists use various tools to accomplish this technique of removing dried paint form a surface to soften the edges of forms or create texture.
Tip: The abrading technique is best accomplished with sandpaper.
Tip: It is most effective when used on thin paint layers.
I’d feel derelict in my duties to this blog not to mention that one of my all time inspirations was the famous illustrator (and I consider “fine artist”), Norman Rockwell. I remember as a young man, I waited with bated breath for the newest and latest issue of the Saturday Evening Post so I could see Rockwell’s most recent creation. It wasn’t long after my mother relinquished the magazine that I had my sketchpad out and was trying to draw the images before my excited eyes. To me, Rockwell was as great an artist as Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. I don’t think I’ve changed my mind since then. Rockwell portrayed the century of the common man, which was deeply American. He also presented the wife of the common man, his children, his pastor, his doctor, his garage mechanic, his banker, his druggist, his grocer, his barber, his dog his neighbor and much much more. In other words, I related to him.
. It’s funny how an arist’s mind works. I told you I like abstract. Perhaps I didn’t explain myself well enough. I can’t really do original abstract painting and am truly jealous of those that can–that is, if they’re any good.
He was considered the great recorder of the American scene. He was another realistically painting artist that used a lot of abstraction in his paintings and was even Jackson Pollock’s art teacher (the famous abstract impressionist artist). As a matter of fact, Benton ventured off into abstraction for a while (see the picture above), only to go back to a more realistic style of painting.
