Seals and stabilizes your surface prior to painting, also adds tooth for good adhesion!
Because a high quality painting begins with a high quality base, start your painting right with Artists' Acrylic Clear or White Gesso! Both offer excellent tooth for great paint adhesion, are fast drying and have a balanced absorbency. The White Gesso has a very high level of pigmentation for maximum opacity and covering power, meaning that 1 to 2 coats on unprimed canvas is all you need. The Clear Gesso is exactly that: clear, not milky like some other "clear" gessoes. It can be tinted with acrylics to add some color to your primer, or used alone to allow the qualities of your canvas or board to show through. It also makes a great ground for pastels or charcoal. Both non-yellowing, flexible gessoes are perfect primers for all your acrylic, oil and alkyd paintings!
Clear Gesso - With all the tooth, absorbency, and fast-drying properties you need in a gesso, only completely clear! Not milky like some other "clear" gessoes, the unpigmented Artists' Acrylic resin base dries absolutely transparent; allowing you to either tint it with acrylics for a colored primer, or to use it alone and permit the qualities of your canvas or painting surface to show through. Perfect for acrylics, oils and alkyds, it also makes an excellent ground for charcoals or pastels.
White Gesso - With superior quality Artists' Acrylic resin base and a high level of pigmentation, this non-yellowing gesso gives the maximum of coverage in as little as one coat! (Though 2 coats are recommended for oil paintings) Fast-drying, flexible, and with a balanced absorbency, this gesso provides the perfect level of tooth to ensure good adhesion of your paint. Use it straight from the pot (dilution is not recommended) to provide a sealed and stabilized surface for all your acrylic, oil and alkyd paintings!
Use to improve flow of acrylic paints, add body, lengthen
drying time and more!
Of course acrylic paint straight from the tube can be beautiful, but why not spice it up and experiment with mediums and additives? Some are designed to assist with technical aspects like lengthening the drying time of paint, or increasing the flow. Others are intended as aesthetic qualifiers, adding or subtracting sheen, increasing transparency, or adding thickness and body. Mediums are what make acrylics among the most versatile paints out there: from delicate watercolor effects to near-sculptural impasto and everything in between, Artists' Acrylic Mediums and Additives will help you make your artistic vision a reality!
Glazing Medium - This translucent medium is perfect for creating glazes with your Artists' Acrylic paints, as it adds transparency without sacrificing the brilliancy of the color. Build up levels of luminous glazes to achieve a refractive depth of color. Revolutionary Artists' Acrylic resin ensures there is no color shift from wet to dry.
Gloss Medium - Use this medium to increase the transparency and flow of your paints, but in thicker layers than the Glazing Medium. Perfect for blending colors, fine detail work, and providing an even gloss sheen. Gloss Medium dries completely transparent and allows for no color shift from wet to dry.
Matt Medium - Use this medium to increase the transparency and flow of your paints, while decreasing the gloss finish. Perfect for blending colors or fine detail work, Matt Medium also enhances the water resistance of the dried paint. The clear binder and matting agents used in the medium ensure no loss of color depth.
Gloss Gel - With a thick, buttery consistency akin to that of Artists' Acrylics themselves, Gloss Gel medium will increase the transparency of your paint without decreasing the body, and imparts an overall gloss finish. The gel maintains brush strokes and palette knife marks for impasto style painting, and dries completely clear with no color shift from wet to dry.
Matt Gel - With a thick, buttery consistency akin to that of Artists' Acrylics themselves, Matt Gel medium will increase the transparency of your paint without decreasing the body, and imparts an overall matte finish. The gel maintains brush strokes and palette knife marks for impasto style painting, and the combination of clear binder and matting agents ensure no loss of color depth.
Modelling Paste - This lightweight, flexible paste will add texture and structure to your painting, but will not shrink or crack. Perfect for building body and depth, Modelling Paste can be carved and sanded to create sculptural effects, and can either be painted over or mixed with color. As it contains a high level of opaque solids, it may lighten colors mixed into it, and provides an even matte finish.
Flow Improver - Use this additive to greatly increase the flow of your colors for watercolor, hard edge, and staining techniques. Flow Improver breaks down the surface tension of water, and should be used in conjunction with water to ensure that the integrity of the paint film remains stable when you want to considerably dilute your colors. This additive slightly lengthens drying time, and maintains no color shift from wet to dry.
Slow Drying Medium - This additive increases the drying time of your acrylic paints, giving you more time for blending and on-canvas paint manipulation. One part paint to one part Slow Drying Medium can double the open working time of your acrylic paint, but should not be used in a ratio higher than 1:1 as paint may become under-bound and sticky. Slow Drying Medium can be mixed with any other medium in the Artists' Acrylic range to lengthen drying time as well, and unlike other slow dry mediums, allows for no color shift from wet to dry.