THE SYNTAX OF COLOR
Product Reviews: SyntaxofColor
Golden Open Acrylics
Golden Acrylics in New Berlin, NY introduced a line of acrylic paints that addressed a concern that acrylic painters have had since the dawn of providing acrylic media for fine artists to use. How can I have an acrylic paint that allows for longer working time? Long working time is also refereed to as "open" time, thus, Golden's Open Acrylics are aptly named.
The advantages should be apparent. When an acrylic painter wants more working time or conditions are such that traditional acrylics dry in seconds and no amount of spritzing with water or the limits of a stay-wet palette become exhausted, Open can become a rescue paint that allows an artist to get the job done. Situations that tax the limits of acrylics are easily found on dry sunny days when painting outside, en plein air. Only the most skilled tacticians in acrylic media bring out standard acrylic paints to use outside on ectraordinary hot, dry days. Traditional acrylic paint is nearly unworkable or so much gets wasted when large piles of paint are laid out but skin over in minutes, leaving a stringy, crumbly mess on the palette. Open Acrylics can reverse the situation and give extended drying time so that the artist does not "fight" the paint. It works without fear of drying extremely quickly.
As of July 2016, Open Acrylics come in 73 colors with a selection of a broad range of traditional types of pigments and a host of synthetic organics that Golden caries in its other lines of paints. What is very attractive is the balance of high tinting strength organic pigments, a full range of inorganic metalic pigments and standard earth colors, it would be difficult to be dissapointed that a color is not represented that an artist needs. Golden did not "dumb down" the color line in Open. This indicates good user acceptance of the paints so that they don't have to be marketed in a student range or abbreviated subset of the leading lines the company sells to offset very small sales.
A nice feature about Open is that it mixes with other traditonal acrylic paints. An artist using Open is provided with a virtual accelerator and brake system. Use Open straight and the drying time is long. Mix Open with traditional acrylics and the drying time is shortened. Vary the percentage of Open and traditional acrylics and once an artist learns the approximate drying times based on the mixed percentage of Open and traditional acrylics, a new world of painting without restrictions is provided.
Artist being what they are, also figured out other ways to use Open. Printmakers have used Open in their work. Monotypes, wood block, linoleum printing are just a few of the ways that Open can be explored outside of applying it with a brush to canvas or paper. As allways, visit www.goldenpaints.com to learn more about Open and other products that Golden Artist Colors manuactures.