Fast - Hard 25 Si. Fast - Heavy 20 and Slow - Heavy 20 B72 Retouching Gels are excellent media for painting impastos with bristle brushes and for painting with a spatula or palette knife.
 

Fast - Hard 25 Si gel is recommended for painting extremely high impastos. Si included in the name of the gel indicates an addition of fumed silica in its composition, which provides an extra stiffness to the gel resulting in rich, crisp, well-defined textures. Bristle brushes are recommended for use with this medium.

Fast - Heavy 20 and Slow - Heavy 20 gels give textures with soft, fluid edges. They can be mixed with Fast - Hard 25 Si in order to obtain a range of intermediate textural effects. Slow - Heavy 20 gel can be added to Fast gels in order to prolong their drying time, and especially to extend the open time available for working with Fast - Hard 25 Si gel. Paint for heavy impastos and textures should be rich in pigment in order to avoid shrinkage and subsequent cracking during the drying process.

Light 10 and Very Light 7.5 gels should not be used for painting heavy textures. Having a false body made mainly of solvent they are comparable with the traditional megilp. The resulting heavy impastos will crack and be brittle.

Very Slow - Light 10 gel should not be mixed with other gels to paint impastos and rich textures, nor be applied in thick layers, because it dries very, very slowly.

An Example of Painting with Impastos

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