Playing with Primary Elements by Luminarte

Earlier this week my parcel of Luminarte powders arrived. Lin found a craft clearance website selling them off at a fab price, so we got some.

After watching a few Youtube videos I rummaged to see what I could find to mix them with, and the answer is basically anything that comes in liquid form!! So we have white gesso, absorbent ground, matte medium, mod podge, triple gloss glaze, textile medium, crackle accents, satin, gloss and crackle glaze, mod podge dimensional magic and gum arabic.

What's in the pot doesn't necessarily relate to the actual colour you get!! From left to right we have ginger peach mixed with textile medium, deep coral mixed with PA gloss glaze, spiced pumpkin & pearl mixed with textile medium and spiced pumpkin mixed with inkseentials crackle accents.

This is the shimmer I got by adding the pearl to the spiced pumpkin. Pearl is the only metallic colour I bought.

And this is the shimmer without adding any metallics, this is ginger peach.

The small tag in the middle is the one above which I placed between the 2 samples we did at the LB workshop using silk acrylic glazes, as a comparison as it is made from the same powders. The reason they look slightly different is because the 2 larger tags are manilla and one has been gesso'd and I used a white tag.

Chestnut brown mixed with triple thick gloss glaze (Americana) and water, chestnut brown mixed with triple thick gloss glaze (Americana), cinnamon brown mixed with gloss mod podge. I added water to the chestnut brown mix as it was quite sticky and started to dry out, adding the water made it much more workable.

This left one was the very first one I did, just using water, gum arabic and golden jade. You have to use some sort of binder if just using water, if you don't, once it dries the mica just rubs off. Moss agate mixed with mod podge dimensional magic, again this was quite sticky, dried quickly and didn't blend too well.

Left to right again, true blue mixed with PA satin glaze. Autumn skies & pearl mixed with PA satin glaze. Autumn skies mixed with Golden matte medium. This one didn't mix or spread very well at all.

The pearl looks more silver with the blue, whereas above with the red, it looks more gold???

Wild plum mixed with Golden absorbent ground (white), the bottom half is mixed with water as it was very thick and sticky again. The part without the water is dull and has lost the shimmer as it was mixed with a white not clear to start with, but by adding the water, the shimmer shows through. Royal orchid and PA crackle glaze, this one didn't work very well either as it was way too sticky and started to dry out.

And finally to the gesso and GP. These have changed the colour and lost the shimmer as they both started off white and not clear. They have both been mixed with china black.

So basically it depends on what look you want as to what to mix the colours with. If you want a matt finish you need to mix with a medium that stays white when dry, but this will also lighten the colour. If a translucent medium goes a bit gloopy or sticky you can just add a bit of water to it, but this may slightly dilute the colour. In my opinion and it's only my opinion, the two best products were, PA satin glaze and FolkArt textile medium. Was good fun playing though xx