I bought this to get a matte finish with my acrylic paints, as I do a lot of illustration work and matte surfaces are easier to photograph and scan. I work semi-regularly with gouache and I like the flat, velvety finish. The finish of this medium is similar, though using it with satin or glossy acrylic paints doesn’t create the same smooth, level surface that you’d get from using either traditional or acrylic gouache. It thins the paints a bit, so that thick, velvety consistency isn’t there. But the surface sheen is comparable. This ultra matte medium mixes with both heavy body and soft body/fluid acrylics very well, and I imagine it would also work with acrylic inks. It extends the drying time a little, works with water and a little goes a long way! I found that I needed very little of this medium to get a matte finish with most of my acrylics. Increasing the amount of medium reduces the pigmentation and coverage of the mix, which is fine if you’re glazing with it or using watercolor painting techniques, but it can also make the paint a bit more streaky, especially if you’re using soft body/fluid acrylics. With heavy body acrylics, the paint consistency, pigment load and color are also a factor. So, finding the right balance for what you’re doing at the time, as well as the consistency and pigment load of the acrylic paint you’re working with, is essential. Since I build up my colors slowly with a lot of layers most of the time, this medium suits a lot of my acrylic work nicely. Oh, I also have tried using a fine layer of this medium on finished work to create a matte surface. While it definitely works, it adds the slightest cloudiness to the paint surface that’s is visible on some colors. It’s probably best to go with a matte varnish if that is needed, but in a pinch for work that will be scanned/photographed and processed digitally (illustration, hand-painted motifs for design, etc), it’s not much of an issue. How does this compare to Liquitex’s Matte Medium? I also have the regular matte medium and, in comparison, this one is definitively more matte. It creates a flat finish very similar to gouache, even with acrylics that are pretty glossy to start with, while the regular matte medium leaves more of a satin finish with glossier paints and really only gets to a truly matte finish when mixing it with more satin-looking paints. When they say “ultra matte”, they really do mean ultra matte!
