NaMoPaiMo can be stressful and tedious (prepping R.I.P),
I was actually spending my time procrastinating from NaMoPaiMo when I was rabbit-holing facebook videos. A cookie decorating tutorial came up (forgive me, I'm not sure who came up with this or who created the video) where the baker was decorating cookies with royal icing. She was creating a Victorian style cookie with flowers, lace piping, fondant pendant portraits, and edible glitter. The thing that caught my eye was the edible glitter, which to me looked like it had the identical consistency to that of PearlEx powder. It was explained that the baker was going to use vodka to stick the glitter to the cookie without melting the icing or allowing the glitter to contaminate the rest of the decorations.
I've already been working on a little antiqued bronze horse and was already dreading the building of more layers of PearlEx to attempt to achieve some level of lustre. So I decided since the bronze horse was an experiment anyways (my first deco), I'd give the vodka a shot. I started with a base layer of pigments sealed in matte dullcote. I followed that with dry brushing some acrylic paint to achieve the streaky oxidized look. Then came the vodka.
What I Did
First I scooped some powder out and put it on a paper plate. I put the vodka in a shot glass (as it should be) and dipped my brush in. I used it like you would with water while you paint. I blended some PearlEx on the plate with the vodka soaked brush (by the way it was a thin detail brush) and it instantly turned into paint. I lightly brushed it onto the model and it went on very opaque and didn't run! I used the vodka to blend the PearlEx "paint" directly on the model to smooth it out. I LOVED the results! One thing I noticed was that it was instant to dry, but like watercolours could be reactivated with more vodka.
I highly recommend this technique for details where you want detailed glitter OR where you want opaque glitter (rainbow ponies anyone?). You can always smooth down the powder by adding more vodka, it dries instantly. I'm dying to see it I can use this same technique for pigment powders - wish me luck!
