 So mediums as opposed to gels are often a lot more fluid. This is an acrylic medium with a gloss finish This is for use with the open acrylic paints, but you can still use it with normal acrylics as well But just to show you So you see how it's got this Liquid texture to it. So what you do if I was working on the flat it sort of will be in a pool and then You kind of take some of your acrylic and you just use it instead of water to dilute it And it's very handy because what it does is it helps it to keep wet for that little bit longer as opposed to water But again still keeps to help more of a consistency What it does is it creates a paint film so it all kind of holds together in one film You see how with the water how it separated out now I know this is on a glossy finish on this palette But the same thing happens onto your canvas often if you just use water with your acrylic and you're trying to Say blocking the ground it will kind of separate out and it won't stick together in a paint film if you use a medium It will help keep it together So you can still go very thin See how it still stays it doesn't fall down or roll down as you can see this little bit of water Perfect timing is rolling down the page This is the other thing with using mediums if you're working on an easel then often if you use water It runs down your canvas and you don't want it to you just want you know a thinner texture So that you can use the medium with it of course with the water and the medium you can use them both together as well so you have Well kind of halfway house between the two You can see by how messy this is this is one of my favorite mediums I use and I use it on most paintings This again is slightly Look slightly milkier than the other medium here I find it very very effective for for blending edges Because it keeps that little bit wetter for longer So again a glaze is just a very very thin layer of paint It's a bit like having a see-through piece of Like a sweet wrapper or something. There's got a color to it you just put in like glass sheets of very very like a stained glass effect really and That's what's great about using the glazing liquid if you can create these lovely thin layers that still stay wet that you can just help to blend edges and You can use as much as it with the paint as you want This again is the acrylic retarder This is like a slow drying Medium so all you do is you you know have your paint You mix it in with it And it just helps to keep it more workable Now the the a small amount I put with it there That's about all you can use with the retarder You don't want to put too much in it or it will always stay tacky and it gives the acrylic a very strange texture to work with If you just add a tiny amount to it It can be very effective just to get that little bit of extra working time that you're after But if you've been working just with water what you will be aware of how suddenly as with all these mediums The acrylic starts to feel a bit slippier You know you don't have that kind of grab factor that you do when you just use water or just the pure Acrylic paint as it comes out of the tube. I hope that's helped just to show you a quick introduction to acrylic mediums This is Wilkamp from Wilkamp Art School