Bullet point notes of advice from John at AP Fitzpatrick on acrylic soak-stain a la Helen Frankenthaler on canvas or fabric.

 

Helen Frankenthaler started off using thinned oil paint, but this meant using a lot of solvent that you inevitably breath in and is very bad for your health. On doctors’ advice she then moved to doing the same thing using acrylics. 

 

Pigment. Dry/powdered pigment can be used to make any paint what type is governed by the binder used eg gum Arabic = watercolour, linseed oil = oil paint. But to make an acrylic paint from scratch may not be necessary or worth it as you cannot ever grind the pigment as fine or mix it so well as a commercial manufacturer can. 

 

Remove ‘glue’ (finishing) from canvas first as this will repel the soak-stain to some degree. You can prewash but it creases severely. Alternatively, wet canvas with water first, stretch canvas on stretcher first, soak then allow to dry. 

 

Priming neutralises ground for painting on. Sizing soaks into canvas. Rabbit skin or Lascaux clear acrylic primer. 

You can prime/seal the back of canvas to prevent the loss of intense colour when the stain dries. 

 

The chemical and natural dyes that I am currently using to dye the canvas will fade. Try creating the same effect with acrylic staining. 

 

Pre wetting / wetting agents. Pre wetting allows you to control the soak stain eg Morris Louis stripes (Tate) he used wetting agent, but they are dangerous to health and difficult to control if layering on subsequent layers of stain as this will reactivate with the water and make the paint unstable. 

 

Recommended products

Lascaux Aquacryl as thin but very finely ground pigment so as you thin for soak-staining you do not lose intensity of colour. You can also use ordinary Lascaux Studio acrylic paint, but they are thicker to start with and the pigment is not ground as fine, so the intensity of colour will not be a great. Golden High Flow acrylic paint range, developed for use in spray guns, also a good consistency so worth trying. There is also a wetting agent in this range. 

 

Do nots...

Size/seal over the top of the soak-staining before painting with oils as if using Lascaux Acrly that can be reactivated with water then this would not be advisable. Could use a varnish but the solvents in oil paints will also affect this so also not advisable. 

 

If you want to fix the stain try using a little Lascaux ‘Transparentlack 1 varnish stirred into the soak stain.