Evaluate of Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium is an attractive product for any artist who works with dry media, because of the distinctive results it might probably produce in drawings. From colored pencils to Conté and oil pastels, the medium means that you can mix, disperse, or paint with the fabric you’ve drawn with. On this article, I experiment with utilizing the medium to create quite a lot of results. It’s potential to utterly rework a pencil drawing into the end of a portray or to easily refine some tiny particulars – its makes use of are as broad because the follow of drawing itself.

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium

Evaluate of Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium

What’s the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium?

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium is a solvent you should use to govern dry media. It leaves no residue on utility and is totally clear. It comes with a security high lid and has a chemical-citrus scent.

It’s accessible in three sizes – 60 ml, 100 ml, and 250 ml. Regardless of solely needing a really small quantity of product to activate your drawing media, for the next checks I used up a couple of quarter of a 60 ml bottle engaged on a small scale. For any artist working with large-scale drawings, or a big physique of labor, the 250 ml dimension could be greatest. I might suggest the smallest dimension as a tester, or for ease of transport if you happen to’re working open air.

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium

This product can also be interesting due to its very accessible value level. The 60 ml bottle is simply £4.10, with the 250 ml being £10.60. For over 4 occasions as a lot product from 60 ml to 250 ml, the worth doesn’t additionally quadruple.

It’s essential to notice that the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium does include solvent, so should be utilized in a ventilated house. It evaporates pretty quickly, and I’d suggest inserting a lid over the jar you’re utilizing it from while working, so it doesn’t disappear throughout your working time. This product may be dangerous to well being and the atmosphere if not handled as a solvent, like say an oil portray medium could be. It shouldn’t be handled as non-toxic simply because it’s used with dry media.

Methods to Use and Clear up the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium

You should utilize the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium with a paintbrush, paper stump, or tortillon, and solely want a small quantity to activate your drawing media. For this evaluation, I used a brush and likewise stored a jar of water and a rag to wipe off the pigment since I used to be shifting between totally different colors. Merely dip your brush within the medium, and apply over the realm you want to mix. You don’t want to use strain in any respect, because the medium will nearly immediately activate the drawing media pigment.

I might suggest not cleansing your brush off within the Pencil Mixing Medium itself such as you would possibly when utilizing watercolour pencils with a jar of water. This prevents muddying your medium and losing product. Water was sufficient to scrub my brush after utilizing the medium with colored pencils and Conté pastels. The exception was cleansing up after mixing oil pastels, which I wanted brush cleaning soap for because it had created a sort of weak oil paint.

Why Would You Use a Pencil Mixing Medium?

Utilizing a pencil mixing medium is the right resolution if you happen to need a shift within the texture, depth of color, or high quality of color mixing in a drawing. I examined the medium with three totally different dry media – colored pencils, oil pastels, and Conté pastels.

In the entire following checks, you’ll be able to see that the media alone picks up the tooth of the paper. As soon as the mixing medium is utilized, this texture is flattened, because the medium disperses the color into the grooves of the floor. This may very well be helpful for broadening quite a lot of textures in mark-marking on the floor of a piece.

By way of depth of color, the medium can be utilized to lighten any mark-making you will have already made by dispersing it. When utilizing an eraser isn’t an possibility, loosening up some pigment which may be too sturdy on a piece is helpful.

In fact, the standard of color mixing can also be an asset of Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium. After you have layered up colors in dry media, the impact of the mix is probably not as seamless as you’d like. By making use of the medium, any undesirable marks may be smoothed over.

Testing the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium

For my first swatches, I examined the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium with Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils in Violet (120), Crimson Alizarine (589), Ultramarine (140), Ultramarine Pink (083), Moss Inexperienced (225), and Bismuth Yellow (810). I blended totally different colors from reverse sides of the web page in direction of one another with the medium and beloved that the end of the impact was so much like utilizing watercolour pencils. This opens up a brand new versatility for colored pencils, with out having to concurrently construct a watercolour pencil assortment.

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium with Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils

I additionally examined layering the Caran d’Ache pencils after which blended the identical layered colors with the medium. I believe utilizing a mix of blended and unblended areas in the identical drawing would look actually stunning.

Mixing Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils

I then examined diffusing some sturdy pencil mark-making with the medium, to see if I might efficiently knock them again. This labored higher for the blue and pink than the purple and inexperienced which remained extra strongly pigmented. Regardless of this I just like the impact of the halo of dispersed color across the mark-making too, showing considerably like gentle pastel relatively than colored pencil.

Experimenting with diffusing marks.

Subsequent, I examined three of the Holbein Artist’s Oil Pastels with Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium – Violet Gray (U611), Violet (U601), and Blue Inexperienced (U549). I organized them in three circles of color in a triangle after which blended the colors towards one another. The oil pastels blended with medium remodeled them into paints. Once more, I believe the differing textures of blended and unblended areas collectively is visually attractive.

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium with Holbein Artist’s Oil Pastels

Subsequent, I wished to show the oil pastels organized in a composition, alongside the identical composition utterly blended with the medium. They’ve such a special end, from hazy and light-weight to strong and heavy. Reaching this sturdy opacity of color with out the medium would require utilizing a lot oil pastel to put down a thick layer. I believe for pastel artists, this might permit them to delay the longevity of their supplies when making an attempt to cowl areas utterly.

For the next swatches, I examined three Conté à Paris Color Crayons – Marine Blue (71), Mineral Inexperienced (30), and Purple Brown (07). I wished to indicate how the Conté appeared combined with the medium, alongside utilized by itself. Subsequent, I layered two colors collectively and blended the identical mixture with the medium under. I don’t assume including the medium elevated the color payoff with any of the opposite supplies, however I believe it has barely strengthened the Conté. Maybe as a result of they’re very dry and powdery, and having them extra hooked up to the paper makes them seem stronger.

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium with Conté à Paris Color Crayons

Lastly, I swatched the Marine Blue Conté by itself, after which with element painted on high with the Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium. Utilizing the medium as a drawing instrument, relatively than simply for mixing creates an thrilling alternative for creating larger depth with out switching colors.

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium with Marine Blue (71)

Jackson’s Pencil Mixing Medium is a flexible product that opens up all kinds of finishes for drawings that may be inconceivable to copy with dry media alone. The liberty to rework drawings with areas of end that resemble portray, or by simply including some refined mixing or detailing, gives a number of alternatives for artists to adapt this product as they please. For me, it’s most interesting in straddling the hole between drawing and portray, in a quite simple type.