What I Learned from Testing Different Gels & Pastes
This is Part 3 of the Playing with Gels & Pastes series, where I share what I learned from experimenting with the different products in my stash.
When I started my Getting to Know Your Gels & Pastes experiments, one of the things I wanted to understand was how these products actually differ from one another.
Pick up a few tubs of gels and pastes and you will find all sorts of descriptions on the labels: heavy, soft, clear, opaque, matte, gloss, flexible, dimensional, textured…
But what do those descriptions actually mean when you use the product in a craft project?
For the first part of my results, I looked at five basic characteristics:
- How Thick or Thin Is It?
- Does It Dry Clear or Opaque?
- Does It Dry Matte, Glossy or Metallic?
- Does It Dry Smooth or Rough?
- Does It Dry Hard or Flexible?
And as I discovered, these characteristics can tell you a lot about which product makes sense for the project you are creating.
How Thick or Thin Is It?
The consistency of the gels and pastes varied considerably.
Some, such as Little Birdie Soft Gel Medium, were very fluid, while products such as Heavy Gel Medium, Mixed Media Paste and the Rust and Patina Effect Pastes were much thicker.
Then there were products somewhere in between, including Dala Gel Medium, Clear Gesso and the Gloss and Matte Texture Pastes.
Why does this matter?
A thicker product generally has more body and can hold its shape, making it useful when you want to build dimension or create a raised design.
A thinner gel or paste spreads more easily and is useful when you want a smoother or thinner application.
The experiments also showed that thicker isn’t automatically better. The consistency you need depends entirely on what you want the product to do.
Thin gels & pastes:
In between thickness gels & pastes:
Thick Gels & Pastes:
Does It Dry Clear or Opaque?
This was another characteristic with a big impact on the finished project.
Some products, such as Dala Gel Medium, Soft Gel Medium and the Gloss and Matte Texture Pastes, dried clear.
Clear Gesso is a little different. Although called clear, it dried translucent rather than completely transparent. Its matte finish slightly dulled what was underneath, and additional layers made this more noticeable.
Other products were deliberately opaque.
Heavy Gesso and Mixed Media Paste dried white and opaque, while the speciality Rust, Patina, Icing and coloured Sparkle Pastes retained their own colours.
This is important when choosing a product.
If you want to add a medium over patterned paper or another surface that you still want to see, a clear or translucent product may make more sense.
If you want to cover what is underneath and create a new base, an opaque product such as Heavy Gesso is a better choice.
Does It Dry Matte, Glossy or Metallic?
The appearance of a gel or paste can change considerably as it dries.
Some of the products I tested had a matte finish, including Dala Gel Medium, Heavy Gesso, Clear Gesso and Mixed Media Paste.
Others were distinctly glossy. Soft Gel Medium dried clear and very glossy, as did the Gloss Texture Paste and Wendy Vecchi Translucent Embossing Paste.
And then there were the speciality finishes.
Little Birdie Sparkle Paste dried with a glossy, glittery shimmer, while Finnabair Icing Paste and Nuvo Embellishment Mousse created beautiful metallic finishes.
The Rust and Patina Effect Pastes were completely matte, which works particularly well for the realistic aged and weathered effects they are designed to create.
This means the finish itself can sometimes be the deciding factor when choosing between two otherwise similar products.
For example, my Gloss and Matte Texture Pastes performed very similarly in most of my experiments. The main reason I would choose one over the other is whether I want the finished design to shine.
Does It Dry Smooth or Rough?
Most of the gels and pastes I tested dried relatively smooth.
This included the gel mediums, gessos and texture pastes, although the exact finish can also depend on how you apply the product.
Some products, however, are deliberately textured.
The Sparkle Paste has a rougher surface because of the glitter suspended in the paste.
The Rust and Patina Effect Pastes were by far the roughest products I tested. Their gritty texture is an important part of creating the aged and weathered effects they are designed for.
This characteristic can affect more than just how a project looks.
A very rough surface can also influence which techniques make sense afterwards. For example, I chose not to test ink blending over the Rust and Patina Effect Pastes because rubbing a blending tool across that rough surface could damage it.
Once again, understanding the characteristics of the product helps you decide not only how to use it, but also what you might want to do on top of it.
Does It Dry Hard or Flexible?
This was one of the characteristics I found particularly useful for memory keeping.
Many of the products I tested remained flexible once dry, including the gel mediums, gessos, texture pastes, Sparkle Paste, Icing Paste and Nuvo Embellishment Mousse.
That flexibility can be important on scrapbook layouts, journals and altered book pages because the paper may need to bend or move.
Mixed Media Paste, on the other hand, dried very hard. When used on a page that bends, it could crack and potentially chip away from the surface.
The Rust and Patina Effect Pastes also dried extremely hard and weren’t flexible at all.
That doesn’t make them bad products. It simply means I would reserve them for a more rigid base such as chipboard, wood, canvas or another solid mixed media surface rather than regularly bending journal pages.
This was a particularly useful reminder that the surface you’re working on matters just as much as the effect you’re trying to create.
What Do These Characteristics Tell Us?
After looking at all the samples together, I realised that there isn’t one characteristic that makes a gel or paste “better” than another.
A thick paste isn’t necessarily better than a thin gel.
Clear isn’t better than opaque.
Flexible isn’t always better than hard.
Instead, these characteristics help us understand what the product is suited to.
If you’re working in a journal, flexibility may be important.
If you’re building dimension on a canvas, a thick product that dries hard may be exactly what you need.
If you’re working over patterned paper, you might want something clear or translucent.
If you’re trying to cover an existing surface, opacity may be much more useful.
And if the medium itself is going to remain visible, its matte, glossy, glittery or metallic finish becomes part of your design.
That’s why getting to know the products already in your stash can be so useful. Instead of simply reaching for whatever the technique tells you to use, you can start asking:
What properties do I need for this project, and which product I already own has them?
Try the Experiments Yourself
Just as I did with my Playing with Inks experiments, I don’t think the purpose of this series is for you to simply copy my results.
Different brands and products may behave differently, and you probably have completely different gels and pastes in your own stash.
Use the blank Getting to Know Your Gels & Pastes experiment table to test what you have and record your own discoveries.
You might be surprised by what some of those half-forgotten tubs can do!
Explore More
- Getting to Know Your Gels & Pastes
See how I tested the different gels and pastes in my stash and what I wanted to discover. - Ways to Use Gels & Pastes
Explore which gels and pastes worked for stencilling, ink resist, adhesives, moulds, heat embossing, foiling and more.
PLEASE NOTE: All the opinions are my own. None of the products have been sponsored.