How should I attach acrylic beads to a painting on canvas?

Question

I want to attach some acrylic beads to a painting I'm going to do on canvas. The paint I will use is acrylic.

What glue would hold them on the best?

Answer 1

There is actually a product by Liquitex that has glass beads in it.  It is called Glass Bead Medium.  But if you have your own beads that you want to use, you could use Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish.  This can be mixed with paint, or used as an adhesive to add other materials and as a varnish on the finished painting.  It has a glossy sheen.

Answer 2

Depending on the "look" that you're trying to achieve....there are many possiblities.  If you'd just like them stuck onto the canvas, I'd use a glue gun.

I happen to love to incorporate texture throughout my paintings and I use Golden supplies when I want to get really gooey with my canvas.  They have gel mediums that are amazing.  They run from a low to heavy bodied gels in matte and gloss (depending on the sheen that you'd like).  These can be mixed with your beads to create a very runny "puddle" (low body) or to create a firm brush stroke which incapsulates the beads (heavy) and shows brush patterns or peaking.  Now, mind you, these mediums are white in the tub they come in, but dry CLEAR (like plastic).  I find that the gloss dries a bit clearer, but once again, it depends on what you'd like your piece to be as a finished product.

You could also mix a touch of color as a tint to the medium, remembering of course that this product starts out white.  A touch of red will turn it pink but dry a beautiful transparent version of the color.....be careful....just a touch will do.  And I'd do a test of this, allowing it to dry thoroughly before touching the canvas so that you have the correct transparency and color.  I've used this method a lot and covered entire canvas' with it.  Some up to 8 feet tall.  

A fun tip...use light weight spackle from home depot and a putty knife to create a textural structure on your canvas (maybe push beads into this), let dry and then float a thick coat of tinted gel medium over the top (working flat of course).  When entirely dry it creates almost a pool of colored water showing the textural structure beneath.

Hope this helps.  

Kimberly

Answer 3

Superglue.

Answer 4

Glitter glue, acrylic molding paste, silicon caulking, and a matte acrylic varnish should hold them.  You could add some heavier acrylic paint you used or oils and this will hold them too.

Peace

Answer 5

glue

or mix them in with the paint then paint them on the surface

or put them on the wet paint

hope this helps

good luck