Chroma Archival Mediums

[MetinYilmaz]

I'm considering of buying Chrome Archival's Lean Medium (to replace turpentine), Fat Medium and Flow Gel. I just wanted to know if anybody here uses them, or time-tested their mediums alone on canvas to see if they darken etc. (The reason I don't use Liquin is a post from a professional artist who wrote he was embarrassed to see his 4000$ painting darkened after he sold it to a lady. I saw one positive feedback about Archival Lean Medium)

Also I emailed the company whether their mediums are good with other brands (I have Daler-Rowney Georgian) but there was no response, maybe I can get an answer here...

Product info:
http://www.chromaonline.com/products...urless_mediums

Thank you.

[mariposa-art]

I just started getting into Chroma oils and just bought their lean medium. Haven't had a chance to use it. So far I love Chroma Archival paints, though.

I suspect that the lean medium is specifically meant for their paint. I did some studies with Chroma Archival oils and used Liquin, until I read that Chroma wants you to use their mediums only. I guess their paints are formulated special and work best with their special mediums.

I have no idea if they would work on other paints and I wasn't planning on using my Lean medium with any of my other oils—just the Chroma. But who knows? You might be onto something here, and perhaps it would work well with other brands of oils.

Interesting about Liquin darkening. I have some very old paintings which used Liquin and so far they look okay to me. I don't think I used the Liquin too sparingly, though I didn't drown my paints in it either. I wonder what the circumstances were which caused the paints to darken so much. I guess that's a subject for another thread!

[DaveGhmn]

Originally Posted by mariposa-art

....
I suspect that the lean medium is specifically meant for their paint. I did some studies with Chroma Archival oils and used Liquin, until I read that Chroma wants you to use their mediums only. I guess their paints are formulated special and work best with their special mediums....

This really piqued my curiosity, so I poked through the Chroma site to find their health/safety sheets. They're quite forthcoming: their paints include a proprietary alkyd drier (2%, so not much) and a highly active isoparaffinic hydrocarbon solvent (5%). And a "preservative," 1% -- no idea what this is for.

I can only guess that the solvent is to speed up or make more effective the milling process.

It's probably the alkyd that doesn't want to mix with other alkyds foreign to Chroma. Not that I'm an expert, but Wikipedia assures me there are different alkyd types with vastly different drying characteristics. Mixing them might cause unpredictable results.

However, my GUESS is that the Chroma mediums can be mixed with any conventional oil paint -- that is, paints that do NOT contain other alkyds. But MetinYilmaz's strategy of contacting Chroma is definitely the right idea... let's hope they answer the question straightforwardly.

[jennifervs]

Hi!

I'm the US Resident Artist for Chroma, and I can answer these questions! The reason Chroma reccomends using Archival Mediums only with Archival Oils is because these oil paints were designed to be flexible as they dry, freeing artists to explore contemporary and experimental painting techinques and "disregrading" fat-over-lean rules. With Archival Oils, you can paint a Lean Layer, then a Fat Layer, then a Lean layer, etc, using the Archival mediums, and know your painting will not crack. Incorporating other brands of mediums or custom damar/linseed/solvent blends will force you to follow fat-over-lean rules.

We do not test our products with other brands. For example, let's say we test our meidums today with Paint x and it works, but tomorow the manufacturer of Paint X changes its formula. We wouldn't know our competitor's formula changed, and it could be possible that our mediums are no longer compatible with Paint X. This is why every manufacturer will tell you to TEST PRIOR TO APPLICATION!

That being said, I know plenty of artists who use Archival Oil Mediums successfully with other brands of paint. The Lean and Fat are indeed alkyd based, and will speed up the drying time of paint layers. In theory, they will work with other oils But due to the wonderful individual nature of art and personal painting practices, always test first. If you like your results and it seems to work, go for it!

[MetinYilmaz]

Thank you for the answers. I ordered the set from blick. I'll share my thoughts after the test drive. So at least Georgian users will get an idea.

[bobc100]

I may be wrong, but I believe that when I first bought Archival Lean Medium it was described by the manufacturer as a lean medium useful for underpainting with no mention that it should be used only with other Archival brand paints. This would have been at least 10 years ago, probably more like 15. During this time, I have been using it with many different brands of oil paint to thin the paint and speed drying in my underpaintings and I've not had any problems.