Mixed Media Art with Faber-Castell Gelatos

For years, Gelatos have been a staple art material of the Faber-Castell Creative Studio brand, favored primarily by artists who enjoy creating mixed media art. Despite their popularity, the question remains; what even are Gelatos? Though their appearance resembles that of a gel stick or crayon, Gelatos are a multipurpose art material unlike any other. Once you discover the different contents and techniques that make Gelatos unique, your art can be changed forever.

What do you get when you mix pigment, wax, and oil? You get a pigment stick of creamy soft texture also known as Gelatos. Gelatos are acid-free, odorless, and water-soluble. They can be used by themselves or combined with water through a series of techniques to create a watercolor medium.

Materials

Gelatos quality pigment is resistant to fading under normal lighting conditions and is compatible with most other acrylic mediums. The easy twist up design of Gelatos makes them easy to maintain and store, and their solid opaque color is perfect to cover large surfaces.

Gelatos can be used on paper, cloth, canvas, wood, and fabric. We recommend using a thicker paper such as watercolor paper and using a sealant when working with fabric. Gelatos are also great to use when journaling in your books, notebooks, or bibles, and their vibrant colors look great against dark colored surfaces. With such versatility, it can be hard to know where to start

with your Gelatos. Here you can find a handful of techniques to gain a better understanding of this medium. (Note: when using Gelatos with fabric, treat your work as a piece of art. We do not recommend laundering any items to which Gelatos have been applied.)

Blending Gelatos is a great technique to add color and dimension to your work. Combine colors together to create new colors and blend multiple colors together with your fingertips, a cotton swab, water, or a blending tool. Another technique to try on your Gelatos is edging. With the edging technique, create a distressed or grunge effect by drawing color along the edge of your paper then blend to fade color inward.

Transform your Gelatos into beautiful watercolors with different watercolor techniques. At a basic watercolor level, create your art with your Gelatos then create a watercolor effect with tools such as a water brush, cloth, or baby wipe over your fingertip to spread and blend the color.

Add a spray bottle to your list of tools and try our spritzing and dripping techniques. Spritzing is when you spray your surface with water, then apply your Gelatos over the wet paper, or vice versa. Use a paint brush to blend and move the color around. The dripping technique is when you apply your Gelatos to one side of your page and use your misting bottles to wet the surface. Tilt your work and let the color drop down the page.

Lastly, dissolve Gelatos into watercolors using warm to hot water and use the back of a spatula to smash pigment fragments and mix until smooth. Add more water to lighten the color, extend the pigment further, and increase the blendability.

Gelatos are available in 80 different colors and can be purchased individually or in a series of gift sets; they come in pastels, brights, translucents, metallics and iridescents. Both the Metallics and Iridescents provide a shimmer effect; however, Iridescents give off a multicolor shimmer, whereas Metallics are one color.