Can you ever use too much matte medium?  Apparently YES.

Back in art school, I only ever mixed my acrylic paints with water.  I’m sure the teachers told us about mediums, but I think most of us were too  broke (or too cheap) to actually go out and buy them.  Because my life can always be more complicated, I thought I’d use this 30 in 30 Challenge to experiment with a few.  So far, I’ve tried slow-dri medium, and extra heavy gel.  On the menu tonight: matte medium.

And it was… not easy to work with.  Maybe I added too much medium to my paint, but I found that the colour practically slid off the panel with every brushstroke.  It could also be that I’m just using cheap-y panels, and their “tooth” would be improved by a few extra coats of gesso and some sanding – but, honestly, who has time for that?  I’m pretty disappointed because I was counting on matte medium becoming my all-purpose, go-to, workhorse medium of choice, and thus far, it has under-performed.  Drat.

What I’m happy with:

• surprisingly, I like her hair on the right side.  I didn’t have time to do anything detailed, but it works well enough.  I’ve noticed that I keep falling back on dry-brushing (which might be the Universe’s way of telling me to chuck the paints and go back to drawing, but there’s never been a good idea yet that I haven’t found the strength to resist, so …)

What I’m less happy with:

• her dead, dead, dead skin tone.

What I learned with this painting:

• some mediums are better than others.  Also, read the damn label.

What I’m starting to suspect:

• the fat, buttery, wet-in-wet look that I’d love to achieve is only possible with oil paints.