making transparent acrylic paint opaque, each lending itself to a different look or effect (see Transparent to Opaque, on the next page). My favorite technique for creating opaque color begins with adding a large lump of acrylic molding paste onto the middle of my palette. Pastes, in general, are opaque and will whiten colors as well as thicken the textural quality. To the paste, I add 15 percent retarder (additive that extends the drying time of acrylic paint) and some water, mixing thoroughly and keeping the paste mixture in a close clump on the palette to help it stay wet for a longer period of time. As I paint, I make smaller mixtures on the palette, using one part colored acrylic paint to one part of the paste mixture. I then apply the resulting mixture with a painting knife.

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Opacity test

To test your colors for opacity, make lines on a piece of scrap paper with a permanent black marker. Load your color onto a palette knife and gently wipe a thin layer of color over the black lines. Don’t press hard; keep your palette knife slightly off the paper, as if there were a ball rolling under your knife. If the color applied over the black lines is streaky or if you can see the black lines under the color, the color is transparent. If the opposite happens, the color is opaque. You can see that the cadmium red on the left is opaque and the quinacridone magenta on the right is transparent.