Concerning use of Sennelier’s painting medium Medium Fluide Brilliant with acrylic paints, usually also Sennelier, but occasionally with acrylics of other manufacturers. Questions: How far may the medium be diluted with water before it is too diluted to form a reliable film? I am thinking especially of the case of using the acrylic more as a tinting medium, highly diluted, for the Fluide than for the acrylic’s own binding properties. What is the medium’s degree of permanence? Are there any pigments or paint dyes used in acrylics that are to be avoided when using it? Are there any other cautions for its use? Its handling characteristics and its transformation time from tacky to hard seem distinct from other acrylic mediums; is its composition significantly different from others?
Thank you all. Perhaps 1:15 (Sennelier Fluide Brilliant:H2o) by itself with no acrylic paint added will yield a reliable film. Perhaps if dye-like tube acrylic color is added to the 1:15, the acrylic medium already present in the tube color will be adequate? Likewise, may we assume if a high clay (or other thirsty or a not-so-absorbing pigment) content tube acrylic color is added to the 1:15 the acrylic medium already present in the tube color will be adequate? I wonder if Sennelier has a recommendation for ratio of Fluide Brilliant to water. I have not seen anything in their literature or on their site. Part of my perturbation is from seeing how strong are the strips and chunks of paint residues on the palette compared to those from other mediums I have used over several decades, the hardness of those residues and of the surface of paintings (with minimum impasto accompanied by bits of debris from shed bamboo brush hairs and vegetation from painting in the field) compared to previous mediums, and the the initial hard-sticky-tackiness during the hours before a “final” state of hardness comes about.
I am glad that you were finally able to post here. Sorry for the difficulty. I will speak about generalities here but will reach out to Sennelier to see if they would like to comment on particulars. In general, gloss acrylic dispersion mediums can be diluted to whatever degree the artist wants. The affect on the paint will diminish with dilution (eg a gloss medium will impart less gloss the more it is diluted) but it will not become an unusable film. There are, of course, restrictions on this. A super dilute and bodiless paint film will not adhere as well at a glossy richly bound one as compared to applying it over a less glossy film. However, acrylic dispersion paints are far more flexible in terms of this than many other paint media.
Sennelier is a professional paint brand and they have gone through the work to make sure that their binders are compatible with the pigments they chose.
I will forward this to others here that have more experience with acrylic dispersion paints and representatives of Sennelier/ Savoir Faire for comment.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve encountered an artist’s acrylic color that is incompatible with mediums from a different brand. Genuine Viridian pigment (hydrous chromic oxide) will cause most acrylics to clot, so it’s generally excluded from acrylic colors. In terms of liberal use on the palette, I agree with Brian, a high proportion of acrylic medium in mixtures poses no problem. Just make sure that the product is an actual acrylic medium, rather than something like a retarder gel, which doesn’t include any acrylic dispersion and which should not be used in excess of what package directions indicate.
We are not familiar with this specific acrylic medium, however we have tested a number of Golden acrylic colors for maximum dilution (see https://justpaint.org/how-much-water-can-you-safely-add-to-acrylic-paint/) and you could test your colors and mediums for the same parameters. Namely adhesion when diluted to extreme levels and color lift when continuing to paint over these dilute washes. Colors we tested that are typical of our line, like Yellow Oxide and Phthalo Blue Green Shade, showed no sensitivity to water or various acrylic products even when thinned with 20 parts water. In fact, sensitivity was mostly limited to worst-case scenarios of highly thinned down mixtures (1:20 and 1:100) involving pigments like Raw Umber, which has a high clay content, or the more dye-like Anthraquinone Blue.
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