How To Make Marbled Acrylic Skins

You will need:

2-3 colors of acrylic paint (I used Daniel Smith Ultimate in Hansa Yellow med, Quindicridone Magenta, and Ultramarine Blue)

2-3 containers with lids

palette knife

Liquitex Pouring Medium

A surface to work on. I used High-density polyethylene plastic, you could use glass, or work directly on the canvas too.

a bamboo skewer or similar type of thing.

Start with a small dab of paint. The pouring medium is white, but dries really crystal clear, so experiment with how much paint you want to add. Keep in mind that the more paint you add the more you will alter the working properties of the medium.

I just needed to use a little dab about the size of the end of my index finger

Gently grasshopper! The more you mix and whip it up, the more bubbles you will get and the longer you will have to wait to move on to the next step!

Once your colors have been blended into the pouring medium admire them for a minute... (wow they look great!) then, put a tight fitting lid on your containers and let them sit for several hours (or overnight if you have the patience... I don't usually have that kind of patience!) until the bubbles come to the surface and pop.

Go get some cookies and hang out....

I use high-density polyethelene plastic taped snugly to a canvas panel for my support because I will want to peel the skin off when I'm done. you could use glass, I've just never been as lucky with peeling skins off glass as I have the plastic.

Also if you were inclined you could probably do this right on your canvas.

Pour out your colors in fat stripes next to each other. Save just a little to add in later.

now you can start to gently swirl with your bamboo skewer. Remember, gentle grasshopper, bubbles are not what we want at this stage!

Now you can decide if you want to add more color into the stripes. I added contrasting colors into the stripes to increase my marbling fun, but you can stay with what you have. Experiment and have fun!

Now work away until you are happy with what you have. I found that, unlike Clear Tar Gel, or Golden's Self-leveling gel, once you have worked your marbling in you have probably spread your medium out enough that it's not going to move too much more. It may settle a bit, so don't expect that what you see now is exactly what you will get.

But it will likely be close.

With the other gels I found that there was a lot of movement when I was done, and although the results were really cool, they weren't exactly what I was looking for.

Find a level spot to leave your skin to dry. Level is the key word here. While I said you won't get much movement, you will get lots of movement if your surface is tilted! Give your skin a good long rest, and come back tomorrow to see what you have.

Once it is dry, gently lift an edge and peel it off (unless of course you opted for the canvas route!)

Ta-Da!!!

Fabulous!

now when you ready to stick this to something (instead of just admiring it!) use matte medium or soft gel gloss (and a breyer if you have one) to stick it down to your new masterpiece.