How to use Cracking Varnish

Acrylic paint has many medium to experiment infinite pictorial effects. If you are a curious artist, i am sure you will be glad to try as many medium as you can. It is always great to experiment new things in life as well as in art! In this post i will talk about a amazing medium that allow you to get an effect very fascinating and not easy to achieve, namely cracking or cracklè! What is it? Why should i try to get such effect? Well i will explain everything right away! Craking Varnish, as name suggests, allow artist to get cracking effect all over painting but you can use it in many different ways to experiment various and amazing effects!  

Well cracking varnish is a medium water-based composed with acrylic resin ,starch and antiffermentative. It must be dilute with water but without overdoing it . The main goal of this kind of varnish is to ageing pictures by cracking all their surfaces. It is a fascinating effect used even by counterfeiters to fool naive buyers which believe that painting is really old and perhaps painted by a famous and ancient master. Cracking varnish is used not just to ageing painting but also to get unusual and unique artworks. Before to see what we can achieve with such varnish now let’s see how we can use it.

Before using such varnish you have to bear in mind some things that can help you out to get the results you wish. First of all you need to apply the background colour darker than the second layer of colour in order to get cracking more realistic and deep. Once background colour is completely dry you can start to prepare varnish. You need to grab a flat brush with soft bristlels and dip it into the varnish then you have to apply it all over the painting. In the meanwhile that varnish dries you should prepare a new layer of colour which must be lighter than background colour. Once varnish is completely dry you can apply lighter layer of colour on varnish but you have to keep in mind that such layer of colour must be very light and dilute with water, otherwise varnish won’t be able to crack colour! 

In the meantime that colour will dry you will notice that cracking start to appear all over the painting surface…well you’ve manage to get cracking effect! There is a good new  because you can achieve infinte effects by using brush in different ways! I suggest you to try brushstrokes in many direction in order to experiment so many effects and even to understand what are the best final effect that fits your needs.  

Acrylic paint is a medium versatile and modern that help artists to satisfy all their desires and stimulate them to experiment new ways to make art! Cracking varnish is one of these medium that wait for you to create artworks unique and full of charm. Remember please to wash your brush right away after finished to use it or otherway you will lost it for ever.