Gel Medium- The Most Essential Tool for Mixed Media Artists

It wasn’t until I began to seriously experiment with mixed media art that I discovered Gel Medium. As I began researching more and more art techniques, I began to stock up on several tools I’d never used before, including this amazing gel. Since then, I’ve used my Gel Medium in several ways, on a lot of different pieces. I’ve used it as a glue, a sealer, and to reinforce extra elements, and it works great every time. It’s also perfect for adding dimension and texture through stencils and palette knives. Gel Medium can also be used as a resist medium to repel paint and ink. You can use it to transfer photos and images to wood and paper and also add it to acrylic paint to extend the color. I’m sure there are even more uses for it that I haven’t discovered or tried yet.

Below are a few projects that show the different and essential ways I use gel medium. I use it in all my projects, but I can’t include them all here, so here are a few milestones-

For this piece, I used it as an adhesive. This was the first piece in which I used gel medium to attach metal to canvas. I was a little worried at first, but there was no need for that- I’ve since used it for much heavier metal findings on canvas and even cardstock, with no issues at all. And of course, since gel medium dries clear, the entire painting is still visible even when I’m a bit messy or the gel leaks out from under the element I’m working on. This stuff is the best! I know a lot of people like modge podge, but oh my goodness, what a mess! It’s sticky and thin and goopy and after using gel medium, I’ll never go back.

Gel Medium is the adhesive I use in my quilled paper abstract art. I use it here to adhere my paper pieces to surface of painted canvas. It dries clear, almost completely invisible, and is super strong.

This altered cover uses fabric, tissue paper and tissue tape, cardstock and thick chipboard as well as several metal pieces. Gel medium works perfectly on all these different elements. Most of the time I’ll use the thick gel straight from the bottle, but I’ll also water it down a bit and use it as a brush-on sealer for certain projects.

This is a very basic image transfer I used in my art journal, using some left over photo prints I had on hand. I was going for a rougher look here- you can get really good transfers using this technique, though I believe it’s better on harder surfaces, like wood.

So, just to recap, here is a starter list of things you can do with gel medium-

Extend the life of acrylic paint
Adhere a variety of embellishments to various substrates
Create texture on surfaces with stencils, palette knives, brushes, etc.
Water it down and use as a surface sealer
Create a resist pattern for paint and ink
Image transfers

Do you have any other techniques for Gel Medium you love to use?

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