Golden Clear Tar Gel Product Review

Product Review:

I have been using Golden Tar Gel for years.  For me, it lends itself to abstract compositions, experimental techniques, and textured backgrounds.

You can’t paint on top of dried tar gel.  It creates a slick surface and additional coats of pigment won’t adhere.  They just run off onto the surrounding surface.

I noticed in my own studio, where environmental humidity is often high, that thick applications of Clear Tar Gel can take up to 3 or 4 days to dry.  I avoid applying it in huge blobs, mostly because I don’t like the resulting shape.  But also because large, thick applications of Clear Tar Gel developed  spots of mold or mildew inside the thick blobs before they dried.

I have never had any problems with drizzle applications and mold.  It dries within 24 hours even on our most humid, South Georgia days.

Skins:

Clear Tar Gel is popular for making clear acrylic skins that can be later used in collage or mixed media work.  The  Canadian artist,  named Calliope, has written an informative squido lens about making these skins called How to Make Marbled Acrylic Skins.  Her demo using a similar product made by Liquitex called String Gel.

Technique:

Clear Tar Gel at Amazon.

Dripping the tar gel from a palette knife or kitchen knife is the most common way to use it. This results in a scribble like pattern.

Golden Clear Tar Gel can be used straight from the jar, which will dry clear or you may add pigment to it.  The video from Golden demonstrates how to properly add pigment to Clear Tar Gel.  This video spend a few moments addressing  the problem of foam.  Foam or bubbles results from rapid stirring or mixing of the Tar Gel.  If not allowed to dissapate, this foam will create bubbles in the dried application.

For impulsive painters like myself, who tend get excited and mix too fast, this can be a problem.  Trust me, it is best to learn to slow down at bit when mixing pigment into your Cleat Tar Gel.

This short video is a quick primer on how to dribble, drip and mix colored pigments into clear tar gel.

Liquitex sells a comparable product called string gel.

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Golden Clear Tar Gel 8 oz. jar  Designed to yield a pully, tar-like feel, but in a 100% polymer emulsion colorless gel. This gel has an extremely resinous and stringy web-like feel. Useful for generating fine detailed lines by “dripping” it over surfaces, as it continuously flows from palette knives or other tools. Blends with all Golden Acrylic colors (though Fluids work best) to offer a full range of colors with which to work.