Create an Oil-Like Finish on Acrylics

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Create an Oil-Like Finish on Acrylic Art

Today I’m going to do something a little bit different. This is a painting that I finished, it is an acrylic on a nice canvas. It is just a very minimalistic landscape. So, it has a little less depth and a little less interest on the surface. I’m wanting to create kind of a nice luster.

So, I’m going to use some materials that I don’t think I’ve shown you yet.

Serene Point is the artwork I’m working on (shown above)

This is a gloss medium. I’m going to use a gloss and matte medium to this on a pallet with a knife and I may use my sponge.

Creating a simulated oil-like finish using mediums

I’m going to create a simulated oil finish on my canvas.

With using these two mediums.

The beauty of using oil is they blend beautifully, and they create a gorgeous lustrous finish. And I love working with oils they do some water-based oils, they do take quite a while to dry even though they are water-based and I do use sometimes an accelerant but they still take several weeks to really fully cure and dry.

What I’m doing is mixing up my medium because I just opened this jar. You could shake it really well. You should always mix up your mediums by a good shake or mix. I’m putting some on my palette.

This one is my matte medium, I’m going to open my gloss medium which is quite a bit thicker. This isn’t quite as soupy as the other.

Scoop some of each medium onto your palette and mix with your palette knife.

I’m going to scoop a little onto my palette. I’m using about half and half or almost 2/3 and 1/3 in favor of the gloss because I want to add a little more luster to this painting.

As I was saying with the oils, they’re beautiful for blending, they do give you a beautiful finish, they take a little while to dry and they are a smellier than acrylic so I always have to make sure I’m very well ventilated when I use them. But they create such a gorgeous lustrous finish

What I’m doing is I’ve built up sort of a just very light kind of frosting-esque layer here with my two mediums here.

Work in small sections

I’m going to work in small  bits creating just a pretty finish, going over my canvas with my palette knife. This is going to give me a little visual interest and depth to my canvas and create that real pretty finish.

Now if I wanted to stay with the flat matte finish that I have, I could definitely use some of my glazes, pretty varnish and create a little more luster. But this is going to also give me just a little bit of texture and it’s going to add a little something to the painting.

So, this is one way to do it. If you haven’t added texture and you’re working on a canvas  and you decide that it’s just not quite go that oomph that I’m wanting, this is a way that you can add a very pretty finish and sort of mimic a little bit of that oil-like luster when it’s all done.

This acrylic mediums mixture will dry clear.

It will dry just about 100% clear, so it will give you a pretty shine and sheen as well.

So, as you can see, I’m just working back and forth moving over the surface of my canvas. I’m not hitting every single spot.

I’m not just, you know, wiping it on 100%, I’m developing a little bit of a surface texture and again just that visual interest on the painting that it was missing.

Let it dry thoroughly!

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