This product helps me marry my ethos with my art practice. Originally, I bought the tubed natural acrylik paint when it first came out, and I have to say I was not that excited about it. There were things about using it that were unpleasant. Mostly the caps were hard/painful for me to open. But also, I think that the consistency just didn’t fit with what I like to use. The color selection was not that great at first. Now that they have added magenta, it has helped color mixing a lot. After trying these fluid acryliks, I feel like I have found the solution I’ve been looking for. I hate the idea of using plastic and washing it down the drain. It’s bad for the environment and it’s bad for global temperatures. Most of my art is about the environment, so there was a mismatch. These paints are very easy to use. I like the fluid consistency and there’s something about the vehicle used that makes the colors more intense than the ones in the tubes. This is very helpful in terms of how much color space you can use with these paints. There are still some gaps in colors available, however, this selection is quite respectable, and I feel, with the addition of a few other pigments, I might be able to get off plastic paint altogether. I will say also that the metallics are beautiful. The gold is somewhat transparent while the other two are pretty dense. I’m including a color chart just for your information. I just did some mixes to see what they would do. I think this is well worth the effort and I’ll probably do more. It’s helpful to understand your pigments, so that you feel like you can utilize your own inner voice while you’re painting, I initially bought the 1 ounce just to try them out. Recently I bought the 4 ounce set during a sale. I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying the 16 ounce set during the Earth Day sale. I intend for these paints to take the place of my traditional acrylic eventually. I should also mention, I love the black. It is the same pigment used in Daniel Smith’s lunar black that granulates in watercolor. If you add “too much”water to the black, so that it runs down your canvas, it will start to granulate. I love that effect. So much better than using bone black or amorphous black that most acrylic blacks are because you’re not using charred bones of animals. The one ounce bottles are a little hard for me to squeeze. I’m hoping the 4 ounce bottles will be easier. I like that they are recycled bottles even though I know drives up the price point. This company tries to make the right choices at every step and you have to respect that!
