How to do Impasto Painting?

What is painting? A painting is an art that allows you to express yourself as what something looks likes but also to give your painting a movement, motion, sense of passion and make it feel from heart and the best way to do it is with Impasto Painting.

Impasto defines the painting technique in which heavy textured paint is applied and shaped on the canvas surface with help of brush or palette knife. Heavy bodied paints are useful here. Sometimes a variety of different tools are used to create an effect like spoons. The main purpose is to leave the knife strokes or the brush strokes in the painting. Sometimes the color mixing is also done on the canvas itself to give a desired effect and make base thicker.

 ADVANTAGES OF IMPASTO
Impasto technique has many advantages. Some of them are mentioned below:

 # It has raised surface that causes light to be reflected in new ways that an artist can control. It was used frequently to mimic the broken-textured quality of highlights i.e. the surfaces of objects that are struck by an intense light.

# Expressionists used impasto to convey feelings and emotions.

# Impasto can convey a three dimensional impression.

# The rough texture can draw attention to certain points or aspects of a composition.

Now you got to know about the impasto technique and it’s usefulness. Now our next and important topic of discussion is how to use impasto technique on painting?

Here below providing the step by step process of using Impasto Technique:

# It can be applied easily with a brush or palette knife. The paint itself can be used straight from the tube, or diluted, to make it thick enough to stand upright so that one can see from sideways.

# When thick layers of pigment are left to dry slowly, wrinkling or cracking of the paint film may occur. To avoid this, use a fast-drying alkyd medium or one specially designed for impasto work. These mediums thicken the paint without changing its color. Excessively oily paint usually makes it awkward to achieve highly textured impasto brushstrokes. In that case, you have to squeeze the paint onto absorbent paper and leave it for a few minutes. The paper will absorb the surplus oil.

# Flat bristle or synthetic brushes are ideal for impasto work, because they hold a lot of paint. Load your brush with plenty of color and dab it onto the canvas, working the brush in all directions.

# For extra texture, mix sand and sawdust with oil paint to create a highly impastoed surface. You can also make expressive marks by scratching into the wet paint with a palette knife, the end of a brush handle or any sharp tool.

# If your oil painting becomes clogged with too much paint, the surplus can be removed when still wet by a technique known as 'tonking'. Simply place a sheet of newspaper, toilet-tissue or other absorbent paper, onto the overloaded area and gently smooth with the back of your hand. Then peel off the paper, lifting the excess paint with it.

# Once your impastoed layer is completely dry, you can glaze over it with a thin film of paint mixed with a glaze medium. However, in order to prevent cracking, the glaze medium must contain more oil than the layers underneath.

Now here is the kicker:
If you are looking the painting and you don’t know whether the artist has used the impasto technique or not, do one thing hold the painting sideways if you are able to see the high mountains of texture coming out of the painting then impasto is being used.

If we talk about acrylics and Oil paints then impasto technique can be used with both but oil will allow to make a thick oily surface with long drying time of oils which make impasto method to be used more effectively with oils. It can also be used with acrylics but not so perfect like oils.

Impasto technique is simple way to give an average painting a big boost, so why not to challenge yourself to try out impasto in your next painting? If you’ve never really done it before, break out of your comfort zone and pile on the stack of paints!

Leave us in comment section- would you like to work on Impasto technique or not?