DANIEL SMITH Luminescent Acrylics - 60ml Tubes

Add dimensional color to your palette with DANIEL SMITH Luminescent Acrylics.

These dynamic pigments are best known for their sparkle but that is only one facet of the story. Use a range of techniques to explore transparency, opacity and color-shifting shine.

DANIEL SMITH offers four types of luminescent acrylic colors—Iridescent, Interference, Pearlescent and Duochrome— and they each produce a different effect. With Iridescent and Metallic colors, light is reflected back to the viewer (like a mirror), bringing a metallic luster to your work. Interference and Duochrome pigments refract and scatter light resulting in a range of dimensional and color-shifting effects. Pearlescent colors offer a softer reflected light for a subtle, smooth sheen.

Metallic Brushstrokes

Iridescent colors, and the majority of Duochrome colors, are opaque when used straight from the tube. The high pigment load and opacity give you great coverage and the ability to create textural brush strokes of reflective color. Highly pigmented paints are easily modified to achieve a range of techniques without losing vibrancy; add painting mediums to achieve the desired consistency for your project. Iridescent colors can be applied with a brush, palette knife or even a needle-tipped bottle for various effects. In this example, Iridescent Bronze is painted over Daniel Smith Black Gesso with a hog bristle brush. For a smoother finish, use acrylic painting medium to increase the workability of paint and a soft brush to minimize brushstrokes.

Interference Glazes

Interference colors pop when used as a glaze over a dark background color. Straight from the tube Interference colors make wonderful highlights and they easily mix with your acrylic palette to create customized colors that refract light. Artists who work in layers can create depth in their work by adding semi-transparent glazes of Interference color. The resulting effect is refracted light that creates a semi-transparent blue veil over the background. Create this effect by glazing over a variety of colors—the combinations are nearly limitless.

Color-shifting Duochromes

Unlock the mysteries of Duochrome acrylics in applications that go beyond the standard paintbrush. Using mediums and a variety of tools you can reveal the dimensional, color-shifting properties of these pigments.

Use Duochrome acrylic straight from the tube for maximum opacity and a subtle color shift. This example shows Duochrome Oceanic applied with a palette knife over black gesso. This thick layer of paint is a soft metallic green from one angle with a metallic gold shine when viewed from another angle.

For dramatic color shifts, use Duochrome paint as a glaze layer in your work. In this example, Duochrome Desert Bronze is mixed with Acrylic Glazing Liquid and applied with a soft brush over black gesso. The color shift is immediate—over the white parts of the canvas the color is a slightly metallic earthy terracotta and the dark areas shine with metallic jade. Get this effect by glazing areas of your painting that have contrasting light and dark color.

Use an airbrush for flat layers of color that have a silky smooth shine. Any luminescent color can be thinned with Airbrush Medium and atomized for a flawless finish. Iridescent colors, when used with an airbrush, give beautiful refl ective surfaces much like automobile finishes. Duochrome colors, like the Duochrome Hibiscus in this example, give your work impact when sprayed over both dark and light areas of your painting. Over the white canvas the color is a soft violet pink; the color-shift over black gesso is a striking iridescent blue-violet.