I was excited to take the opportunity to look at a bunch of paints at the same time. It's something I've never done before. It forced me to think about why do I like the paint brands that I do. I unconsciously rate paint when I work with it; but it took me some time to actively figure out how I decide if I like a brand. I'm not going to pretend that I am not somewhat biased to paint brands, because I am.
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I have been working to as a professional artist for way longer than I'd like to admit and with all of that time, I have my own personal experience with paint. I have used the cheapest stuff possible when I barely had two dimes to rub together as a baby art student, and as I have grown as an artist and painted significantly more I've gotten to know what I like in paint.
This is my personal experiment to pit 6 other brands of heavy bodied acrylic paint up against my favorite brand that I predominantly use. I am willing to have my opinion changed and I'm curious to see if I would consider brand switching. I hope in explaining at how I look at paint, maybe it will help you decide when you are searching for new paint. Please, take my opinions with a grain of salt, they are merely my thoughts based on my preferences and personal experiences as an artist.
I want to add before I begin: I have no affiliations with any paint brand or art supply company, all the paints I purchased were paid for by Visual Arts Passage. I would also like to say that the quality art supplies do not make you a great artist, but it can be nice and can possibly enhance your painting experience. One of my favorite artist's Mark English shopped for his art supplies at the hardware store and his work are masterpieces.
Let's begin: When I thought about this challenge of rating paint I decided to narrow the field to heavy body acrylics, because that's what I work with. I also took advantage of that fact that when I started writing this article it was the beginning of the holiday season. There were a lot of paint sets available. This gave me the chance to look at brands primary colors as well as black and white without breaking the bank.
I started off just looking at the individual paint sets and rating them, but then also started to access the sets they put together. If you are a beginner with acrylics, a basic set of white, yellow, red, blue and black should be enough to allow you to make the colors you need. You should have nice tints, get good warms, cools, darks, lights and be able to created secondary colors (green, orange, and purple).
For this reason, I realized that making paint swatches and tinting the colors with white and black wasn't enough for me to decide if I liked it or not, so I also did a little portrait studies. These little painting were where I was really able to decide if I liked a paint brand or not. I tested all of these paints on white gessoed cardboard (upcycling at it's best!), and used copyright free images for references for my studies.
My at home heavy body acrylic brand of choice is Liquitex ' so I am definitely skewed in that direction and it's what I compare everything against. Because of that, I didn't need to purchase a set but used the colors that would be in a set.
This paint is a delight to work with, I got wonderful warms and cools. The set didn't actually include black, so I made it by mixing raw umber with ultramarine blue. I would highly recommend this brand. I thought it had good pigment, mixed beautifully and also maintained good color when watered down, and didn't darken significantly when it dried. This isn't even their professional brand, I'm impressed, these are quality acrylics. Individual tubes can cost between $7-13.
Galeria Acrylic is a high-quality acrylic paint which delivers professional results, ideal for artists who want high quality more accessible range. The Galeria Acrylic range offers excellent brilliance, professional quality pigment, opacity and permanence with a smooth, satin finish. Galeria uses either the same pigment as the professional range or a similar pigment load, but in a lower concentration. This makes it easy to use with, or transition to artist grade paints when a wider choice and high pigment strength is needed.
I really wanted to like this brand. I have ordered supplies from this company before and always have had a positive experience, but their acrylic paint brand was disappointing for me. The Napthol Red was very cool and dried dark, when I tried mixing with yellow it continued to stay cool. I also found a slight grittiness to the paint itself, and thought it was odd how matte it dried, almost like gouache. To me this said their pigment quality is not as high as advertised. At $5-9 a tube I was hoping to tell you that this would be great, but honestly I wouldn't recommend this brand. At best this is a student grade paint, in spite of describing itself as professional quality. I will add that I liked that their paint tubes are recyclable. $5-9 per tube.
Smooth, lightfast, and permanent, with excellent pigment quality, color strength, and longevity, Blick Artists' Acrylics offer an exceptional combination of quality and value.
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I'm familiar with the brand Holbein and have used their watercolor paint before, but I've never used their line of acrylic paints. I thought it was super smooth, mixed beautifully and had a nice vibrancy. I got good warms and cools. I'm a big dabber with my finger to blend and it holds up. Working with primary colors and white and black should be enough to give you the full range of color- this set does that. I did find because its' primary colors were somewhat transparent, it was tough layering on top of a darker color. The transparency of the colors versus the opaqueness of the white and black takes a little getting used too, but overall I really like this paint and I would buy it, though it is a more expensive brand. Price per tube $9-22
Professional quality at an affordable price ' that's what you get with Holbein Heavy Body Artist Acrylics, engineered to add more luster, brilliance, and color vigor to your paintings, as well as higher lightfast ratings.
This acrylic paint was more soft body than heavy bodied in spite of it advertising itself that way. This was a Hail Mary pass, super affordable so I thought I'd give it a try. I wanted this one to be an exciting surprise- alas it's living up to it's price. It dries glossy, which is better than Blick and I am pleasantly surprised that I can mix a warm color. Out of the tube the red is more pinkish so I worried because of that it would be cool, but the pigment is okay. It's pretty transparent and I found layering difficult. At best this is student grade paint. For $3-4 a tube, it's okay.
Thick and Rich Color! By combining the finest pigments, superior binding, and modern manufacturing techniques, Soho Urban Artist Acrylics give you all the best-loved qualities of a professional acrylic color at a very affordable price point.
I have heard a lot about this acrylic paint, and I know many artists that use it. This may controversial on my part, but I wasn't a huge fan. The yellow, red and blue are really nice separately, they are heavy bodied, have a smooth consistency, and have a good amount of pigment in the paint. I take issue with the version of primary colors they send in the set. I find it weird that they include a brilliant blue that is like a cerulean blue in the set when they included a cadmium red light. With their basic set you can't mix a purple. If you're going to provide a primary color set, you should be able to mix secondary colors (orange, green and purple.) In my opinion, it says an artist didn't put this set together because primary colors, plus white and black should be enough to make all the color you need. If you want to work with a limited palette, which I think is smart for a beginner painter to learn about color, this set won't work. Maybe this won't bother anyone else, but this irks me. When painting faces, purple is an essential color for undertones on the face. I find that this paint company is good enough that they should have done better on this. I struggled with painting this portrait because of I couldn't mix a purple. For an acrylic paint set at this price, I expect better. Price per tube $7-22. Overall, the paint is good, but the set should change it's blue.
Pure pigments in the highest possible concentrations are combined with superior-quality polymer vehicles to produce colors with exceptional clarity, covering power, and tinting strength. A wide range of single pigment formulas offers excellent mixing results. Although they are professional quality
If you know anything about Gellner industrial, you'll know acrylic polymers are our bread and butter. But how much do you actually know about acrylic polymers? It is not something that comes up in normal conversation, but here at Gellner Industrial, it comes up all the time! In this blog post, we will describe, in layman's term exactly what an acrylic polymer is, what we use them for and how they relate to you and your commercial or personal needs.
Acrylic polymers can also be referred to as acrylates. Acrylates are a group of polymers related to vinyl polymers. Acrylates are made up of acrylate monomers. But do you know what a monomer is? Don't worry, many people don't! A monomer is a molecule that binds chemically with other monomers to create a polymer, such as in the case of the creation of acrylic polymers. The process in which monomers chemically bind with other monomers in large number to create polymers is a term referred to as polymerization. To break it down even more, an acrylate monomer is usually an ester. An ester is a compound derived from an organic or inorganic acid in which one 'OH (hydroxyl) group is replaced by an 'O'alkyl group. The acrylate monomer is an ester that contains a number of vinyl groups, which are carbon atoms double-bonded to each other. Some polymers contain free acid or acrylic acid, even. Some acrylates have an extra methyl group attached to them and subsequently, they are referred to as methacrylates.
If you look at an acrylic or acrylate polymer under a microscope, you will see two different distinct parts of it. It has a carboxylic group and alternatively, it has the group that contains a double bond.
So enough science- what are acrylic polymers useful for? Well as you can see on the Gellner Industrial website, they are incredibly multifaceted entities. They can serve in being a quality coating for vinyl and the many subsequently vinyl applications therein, or they can become acrylic paints, which are used by a number of different artists on a number of mediums for a number of different artistic ends. Acrylic polymers go beyond vinyl applications, however. They provide a variety of quality coatings for a number of entities in the industrial world. The plastic film they entail is extremely resistant. Additionally, acrylic polymers have great potential in being used as synthetic resins. As well, all of the WonderWet Products are acrylic polymer emulsions that can be used as an additive to paint.
No matter what you are looking to do with acrylic polymers, whether it be for your painting company or your own household need, look no further than the quality polymer products offered at Gellner Industrial.