Too many things to focus on and it's leading to a struggle but the struggle will lose as I am gaining knowledge each time out and in the evenings as I watch videos on YouTube of acrylic procedures I find interesting.
Yesterday was a complete failure. I mixed marble dust and heavy body medium into my paint blobs. The dust and medium was a success but I did it wrong as I did it to each mixture. It takes time to mix the dust and medium and by the time I was ready to paint some of the mixtures were already on the way to dry. After thinking about it in the evening I came to the conclusion that I simply need to mix the dust and medium ahead of time and then put it into my blobs of paint IE .. red, yellow, and blue. Then I can save oodles of time. I mixed the medium and dust last night and then put it in an air tight container with a piece of wet sponge to keep it fresh.
This morning, I added that mixture to my paint bods of yellow, blue, red, and white. I only mixed a specific color when I was about to use it and not ahead of time. That way the piles of paint color stayed fresh as they were in blobs and I only took out as needed. The dust and medium gave good body to the paint.
I have ordered a paint retarder to further push the life of the water in the paint and I will let you know how that works when I get it. I also order an extra heavy body medium which should build additional body. That I won't get for a month but again I will put my thoughts on here when I get to work with it.
I was happy with the session this am and will post a pic of the painting later. I need to let it dry up and then put it under weight to straighten the paper. Then I can take a picture.