5 Background Techniques with… Pebeo DYNA Paints Volume 1

What are dyna paints and why their own set of techniques in addition to regular acrylic paints?  Good question!  Pebeo’s dyna paints are part of the high viscosity acrylic paints that they do but are extra special – each one is made of a shiny pigment colour and a different interference colour, so when it catches the light they are effectively two-tone.  Even more magical is their ability to appear different depending on the colour of the background (i.e. white card vs. black card).  Until cameras and monitors become sophisticated enough to capture the shine I hope you will see some of the effect in the video, but believe me when I say that the effect is wonderful!  As with other acrylic paints feel free to pop on over to my acrylic paint background techniques as those will work with these paints too.  Click here for a full list of my technique pages.

Techniques covered in this issue are:

1. Simple blend
2. Stamping (on black surface)
3. Watercolour resist
4. Sponging (same two colours shown on black and white)
5. Gel medium tinting

1. These paints blend on surfaces very well and can take a lot of water to help with a smooth blend, not only do you end up with a blend of the base pigment but also the interference pigments too.

2. I have sponged two colours onto a background stamp before stamping onto black card to give this fabulous result.  Just remember to wash or at least soak your stamp as soon as possible.

3. I have stamped my background by sponging onto the stamp as before, but this could easily be any free hand paint on the background.  Acrylic will resist watercolours so I have washed over the top with aquatints.  You will still retain all the shine of the paints.  My personal favourite is stamping in a lighter colour and washing with a darker colour.

4. I’ve picked this technique to also demonstrate the difference between painting onto a black surface vs. a white surface by painting half the card with Pebeo’s black gesso.  Now you can see that the gold is actually green and the blue is actually pink in my example. 

5.  I wanted to test the effect out when mixed with gel medium.  This gives a different effect as now the colours seem almost pearly.  I’ve used a gloss medium for a high shine finished and both applied directly with a spatula and through a stencil.

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