Golden recommends a thickness of paint application of no more than 1/16 thick. I prefer regular oils anyway thinned with Zestit and Liquin anyway when I need to paint this way. Hi Alex, yes, you can paint portraits in a traditional way using acrylics to create a classical portrait. You mentioned Atelier Interactive acrylics, have you tried these at all yourself? I cant imagine waiting hours for the paint to dry before adding another layer. I am wondering what Golden Open vs. Atelier Interactive reviews are. I use retarder at times as well (I like W&Ns). I havent had much trouble until last summer when paint was drying on the trip from my palate to my canvas. Hi Will, Is it possible to paint portraits in a traditional way ,with a limited palette in Acrylics [ Golden open or say Atellier interactive ] -giving a longer open time for blending and working. The color saturation a and overall coverage and longevity this paint has is phenomenally astounding and makes every single penny spent that much more worth it. More importantly the shift in tone after drying is very inconsistent and strong. Thank you Will that was really interesting. For example the description on the bottle of my Golden Retarder says that recommended ratio paint:retarder is up to 1:1 when painting thinly. Hi Lynn, Thanks for your comments on using Atelier Interactive paints, I would like to say Thank you as your webside is helping me! It was a dry summer. Hi Will I live in Australia where it can get quite warm and I find Artelier Interactive Acrylic to be a great paint to work with. Youll have a paint film that takes weeks to dry and the paint, when pressed, feels mushy and a very strange surface to work with. You then try to mix more of that exact colour. I have a few tubes of each. My fear is that the open acrylics will be soft and transparent like the student level paints which I despise. Or should I buy Open acrylic paints for the whole painting? This can also be called the open time of a paint. On their website there is an instruction not to exceed 15 %, but right now Im looking at my Retarder bottle and it says: For thicker applications do not add more than 1:8 retarder:paint. My sister put this in the bathroom and I used it as tooth paste the taste could've been better but sadly it was a miss. You can also intermix them with standard acrylic which can be handy to fine tune the dry time to your environment and working process. Hi Mark, I mostly use Golden brand and Winsor & Newton Acrylics. Thanks for your reviews. [perhaps i`m not looking at the right Paintings! Hi Linda, nice to hear from you, I dont currently run any live classes, but good to know it would be of interest. By the way, love the site. Can you say more about drying time (faster or slower compared to other brands), viscosity, opacity, etc.? Thanks for your advice! To return an item (excluding sample products), the item must be new, unused and in its original packaging. Cheers, Will. This can feel nice straight from the tube in comparison to heavy body paints that often need a touch of water added for mixing the perfect consistency. On the other hand OH recommends adding max. Any tips you have for doing really big pieces is welcome. Michael Gaskell that has a very fine/photrealist. Have you tested it? :), having just discovered these paints and convinced myself they were the answer to my prayers, i was within a gnats whisker of buying some today, but instead i bought Windsor and Newton Slow Drying Medium to mix with my existing paints. Cheers, Reinhard, Youre welcome Reinhard, so pleased it helped. I am extremely frustrated by the dry time of my heavy body acrylics, but I love the opacity/coverage. It is sooo helpful. Bit late to your fab article but thank you! Cheers Mick, Pleased it was helpful, Will. If you use standard acrylics for 90% of your painting, this leaves you free to apply thick impasto and painterly brush marks, then use the OPEN acrylics for the final 10% you can achieve some lovely results. They dried to a lovely soft sheen that can help with the vibrant scenes in the colours without varnish. Im hoping you dont mind me commenting to ask a question a year after the last one. heres a good video comparison of the drying times of watermixable oils. Ive been considering open acrylics myself for blending purposes, so this article has been really helpful. I have heard there where different acrylics for drying times but didnt know what they where called. I like to paint flat and I like to do impasto. It helps me as a beginner in acrylics tremendously. However, after the initial excitement I started noticing other problems. I sometimes think Acrylics are not taken as seriously as Oils. Pleased you found it helpful Sophia. They had caught my eye in the Jacksons catalogue but on balance no, retarders work well enough for me when necessary. And I hope to be able to do so with Golden brand acrylic paints. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the paints Artemi, much appreciated. Learn how your comment data is processed. I tend towards very thin layers of paint, I personally am not a big fan of impasto techniques so that isnt an issue here. Next subject brands of acrylic paint. Thank you for that. Not really, I always adhere to the approach of less is more. Cheers! So although the paint has a long drying time, the actual working time is a lot less if working in such thin layers. Yes i have looked at your Acrylics course, but my download speed is only 1.05 and sometimes freezes!. It depends on the size of the blob of paint on the palette and the environmental conditions. Thanks Will, I had been wondering about these paints and how long they took to dry. I do have one question. I see they are softer, thinner but have not painted with themjust dabbled. 5 Little Lessons from Painting a Large Painting in a New Space, Capturing Spring Sunshine by Painting Colourful Shadows (Acrylic Painting Tutorial). Hi Ivan, I really like the golden titanium white and the range of viscosities available in the brand. There are no fillers, extenders, opacifiers, toners or dyes added. I also love these but they come in a large selection of colors. Hi Ivan, the New Masters Acrylics are really nice, they dry to a slight more sheen than other acrylics so can appear with more saturation, theyve also got a nice painterly feel to them. Ive found the Golden titanium white has more opacity and the heavy body range from Golden have a slightly stiffer texture than the Winsor and Newton so it depends which feel you prefer. Your info has saved me a lot of time, disappointment and waste of money I spent on the OPEN. I have not tried this particular green, but going to pick one up soon because its dead on what Im looking for, for my grass affects. These colors offer excellent permanency and lightfastness. Pro tip: OPEN acrylics remain tacky when drying so it is advisable to leave your paintings in a dust-free environment before varnishing. I prefer using the Acrylic Glazing liquid over the Retarder as with a glazing liquid you can add any amount to the paint and it wont have any adverse effects. I am a beginner and I have found answers to most of my questions in this blog! Also, there is this thing with New Masters binder which, as OH says, is somewhat unique. This refers to how long the paint is available to move around on the canvas and work with. Hope this helps, Hi Will, thanks for your reply, the link to Michael Gaskell is very interesting. Thanks very much Ilene, so pleased youve been enjoying the lessons. Hope this helps and good luck with the commission! Retarder, Glazing Liquid) work with Old Holland New Masters acrylics? There are a few options to help increase the working time of your paint. Ive been struggling under the misapprehension that OPEN are workable longer! Thanks! Without a very good drawing skill set Im leaning towards making some colorful collage type tableaux. I really like them, but I do have to be careful not to over work an area and instead let it dry first. Thank you for saving me the grief of fighting with my next painting! Could you suggest a few examples of what you would consider good quality/price ratio products?.and is there a genuine source of purchasing paints through internet? All acrylics darken slightly as they dry, the betterqualitypaint, the less the colour shift. This is my first comment on your blog. In your article above, it says that the heavy body paints are only wet for 5 minutes. My painting subject is underwater with lots of fish and corals. I think Atelier was on the market first but not where I live in Western New York. Cheers, Will. To overcome the problem of lifting layers below I kept using W&N for rough underpainting though. Golden refers to this drying period as a Sweet Spot where you find the perfect texture for your particular needs. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Ive bought a Modern Open colour set to try. When youre first starting it can be hard to judge when this perfect moment is and as the thickness of paint application varies, so does the timing of the drying. Of course OPEN can be used atop regular acrylic which has been used for impasto, so theres that option as well. Anyway, thank you for your answer, it helped me. Subtle diffused blend using OPEN acrylics, The coverage or opacity of the paint depends on the amount of pigment in the paint (called pigment load) and the binders used in the paint manufacturing process (called the vehicle). However, with OPEN acrylics, I have noticed a definite colour shift when the paint film dries. As you mentioned the Interactive paint can be rejuvenated with a spray of water and if used with a painting medium instead of water have a lovely look and feel to them. you might find helpful. Id like to try using the heavy body acrylics for my underpainting and then doing the detailed layers with the Open paints. How long will the heavy body paints be wet on the palette without adding a retarder? I absolutely love these paints! You might say why dont just buy also OH retarder, but OH sells it only in 500 ml dose and that is just too much. With standard acrylics, you can apply the paint as thick as you like. Thanks Debbie, pleased to hear youve got a clearer understanding of the OPEN acrylics. Standard Golden Heavy Body acrylics have 110 colours (not including specialist effect paints) Golden OPEN acrylics has 80 colours. I am planning to paint leaves and embellish them with Swarovski crystals over my summer break. You can easily find yourself accidentally lifting up the previous layer of paint from underneath you thought was dry. Hi I have not used Golden Open but have used acrylics a lot. Like the rest of your subscribers I, too, appreciate and enjoy your tidbits of valuable and practical information. Ferie. Thanks for dropping by, really pleased youve learnt loads on the still life course. You can mix OPEN acrylics in with standard acrylics easily and without any real problems. Cheers for the comment, really pleased you found the article helpful. Do you think it can be a good thing? Now l am wondering if l should go for Open acrylic paints because I need to paint fish and corals in great detail. And are they any good?. I used to read about European artists using them. I like it because you dont have to buy all new paints. I did a mixed media painting to celebrate winning my battle with cancer. Dear Will, many thanks for this clear and concise explanation. The colour shift is very minimal in the Winsor and Newton so they can be a great starting place. Hi Remon, nice to hear from you, yes I do also use old Holland, Sennelier and Schminke, both the oils and acrylics. Subject matter is all around us which is good for inspiration. Get the latest on trends, deals and promotions. Best thing to do is buy a couple of tubes of each, the earth colours series 1 will be the most affordable and have a play with them to see which you prefer. Hi, thanks for the article. This means it doesnt hold its shape as well or hold in stiff peaks. Why do they recommend such a thin application? I love the overall quality. Also, when drying, the OPEN acrylics go through a strange process of tacking up. Your tutorials have given me the confidence I was lacking in transitioning from graphite to paint, and your work has inspired me to leave my realistic comfort zone and experiment with more impressionist techniques. My question is; what type of materials ( paints,canvases or boards) would you recommend for this type of project? Maybe Golden Open offer something better? In other words, are the paints going to be unusable on the palette after only 5 minutes? Enjoy experimenting! I wonder because my local art shop owner always speaks highly of brands like the French Sennelier, German Schmincke and of course our Dutch Old Holland when I buy some Royal Talens Amsterdam acrylics. So, if Golden Retarder works well with OH, it might save me some money. Can I use Martha Stewart glitter as a replacement to swarovski crystals? The paint initially feels very oily and slippery and as it dries becomes increasingly stiff. I hope to be able to paint for a long time to come. It contains the largest assortment of unique pure pigments in a 100 per cent acrylic emulsion vehicle available to the professional artist. Cleaning wise they are more convenient than standard acrylics as the paint doesnt dry on the brush. Everyone should remember that a sealed surface will significantly increase open time. that somehow pulls the pallet together? Learned more in one lesson than 4 months of weekly lessons in oils in High School. I understand that it makes the canvas texture easier to work on, but unclear why a color is suggested. So say you love the opacity of standard Titanium white but want it to stay workable for a bit longer then you can add in some OPEN acrylics to the mix. Thanks for your reply. Dont have red or white and regular colors. This could be your breakthrough piece, a personal Mona Lisa. I like Golden paints, Liquitex are also nice. I was wondering if open acrylic paints are anyway similar to the fevicryl fabric paints that are available in India.Fabric paints seem to me like a more liquidy version of acrylic paints.I would appreciate any comments re the differences between them. In other words, as the worlds first producer of oil paint, Old Holland is rightly proud of the fact that New Masters Classic Acrylics have the same characteristics and texture as Old Hollands oil paint.. As for my question. It goes through different textures under the brush which can feel damn right weird if youve used standard acrylics. Watched alot of videos of yours on YouTube, inspiring and an amazing artist, love all the tips. I use heavy body acrylics and they are wonderful pigments. Thank you Wil; much appreciated. I included many words, sayings, images, and a poem that I had written, hiding them beneath the surface of the paint, as many of them represented very personal fears and other feelings. I hope to take your acrylic portrait course soon. Hi Ferie, the OPEN paints will give you a much longer working time for the scale of your piece so might be the better choice for this project. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Do you think lt will be better to use heavy body acrylic for the water and the background and then use Open acrylic paint for the fish and corals? View Full Shipping Policy and Pricing , If your Michaels.com purchase does not meet your satisfaction, you may return it within two months (60 days) of purchase. Id like to know your opinion. Regards Lynn. Its a drag that OPEN isnt really good for heavy impasto on its own, but then again, regular acrylic for heavy impasto is nice in the sense that it doesnt have the extremely long drying times of thickly-applied oil. Enjoy experimenting with the OPEN acrylics! I would invest in an artist quality titanium white first so you can see the difference. So should you rush out and buy OPEN acrylics? Golden Heavy Body Acrylic colors is the original line of Golden Artist Acrylic Color, and is known for its exceptionally smooth, thick buttery consistency. Thank you very much for them. Heavy Body colors contain no additives, such as matting agents, therefore the gloss of each color will reflect the characteristics of each pigment in their purest form. Ill keep that in mind while painting. :). Cheers, Will. And I like the way you present your ideas and opinions. Do you have any experience with it? I was actually considering replacing my entire palette with these Open Acrylics expecting them to behave much more like oils. Thanks for your input! One of the great things about OPEN acrylics is you can mix them with standard acrylics. I love your website and videos. Good luck, Thanks Fatima, so pleased youve been finding the articles and videos helpful, thanks again for your kind words. Hope this helps, Thanks so much, Will! It may be worth a shot to ask him for his experiences with that particular brand of paint. In your article above, it says that the heavy body paints are only wet for 5 minutes. Mmm, you got me, not up on Martha Stewart glitter! Currently struggling with the very very high tinting strength compared to a traditional palette and the Hansa yellow included in the set. Thank you so much for the reply. I decided to try and use acrylics with a watercolour technique. This is from the Golden website as a comparison between the OPEN and heavy body paints OPEN Acrylics Wet 30-60 min Workable 1-3 hrs Touch dry 24 + hrs Heavy Body Acrylics Wet under 5 min Workable 10 min Touch dry under 30 minutes, The best way to increase the working time on a palette with heavy body acrylics is to use a stay-wet palette. This will be primarily a landscape with a slender section of blue sky at the top. I tried (very briefly) both at a friends house, and I think Golden is smoother out of the tube, which I like, while W&N looked much thicker (somewhow pasty). Michaels and the Michaels logo and other trademarks and logos used on this site are owned or licensed by Michaels Stores, Inc. All rights reserved. One of the most common issues beginners have with acrylics, is they dry too fast. Does this also include on the palette? Do you think using Golden Heavy Body acrylics and mixing in your own retarder is just as good as the Open Acrylics? Colors that are more reactive and do not accept high pigment loading dry to a glossy finish and tend to be more transparent. Acrylic Glazing Liquid can be used in place of straight Retarder, and there are no restrictions on amounts. Which option will be best for meuse retarder or use open acrylics? Because of their longer open time I had been considering trying these paints out.