Why not use cheap acrylics?

[dances_with_oils]

Hmmm, this debate will go on forever as long as anyone thinks they can justify the use of cheaper paint (and by cheaper I mean less pigment, more filler, less binders, more water) because some well known artist has done so or the painting that they did in high school is still doing great.

I think in my own humble opinion that if an artist wants to use cheap paints and sell as if they were using luxury paints then they are doing themselves a disservice in maintaining a decent reputation within the art conservation and restoration fields. It’s one thing to assume that your high school art is doing great but it’s another thing to actually see and understand what happens to paint on the microscopic level. Acrylic regardless of quality is going to be a huge dust attraction and the way the properties of it behave, can lead to the paint actually surrounding the dust molecule and making it near impossible to clean it.

Add in mould, brittleness, freezing, sticking, melting and sun damage and if you have used paints that contain cheap and nasty ingredients, you’ve got yourself a conservation and restoration nightmare.

Of course I have pieces that I painted in school, using student grade paints and yes, to the naked eye they still appear ok. But if I were to take those pieces to be cleaned, chances are that they would present so many issues that the price of the cleaning would triple in price.

Now, ask yourself this…as an artist do you think it’s worth it to your reputation to place the burden of conservation of your pieces onto the buyer because you used cheap paint? How do you think your reputation would fare if your work all of a sudden became known to be expensive to clean and conserve?

http://www.si.edu/MCI/english/learn_more/taking_care/acrylic_paintings.html
http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/04autumn/jablonski.htm

In acrylics, what you lose on the straights you make up for on the corners. Robert Genn

[Idlewilde]

I agree with you, dances with oils. No point spending all that time on a painting and not using good stuff. If it fails you are not doing buyers any favours and your reputation suffers.
Use the best you can afford and DO your best! The only person you are fooling is yourself if you don’t.
Cheers, Ian Wildey.

[ArtistPete]

Darn, I wish they would charge more for those bottled acrylics………..then some people would deem them worthy to use.

My point is that some choose to use liquid acrylics–price hasn’t got diddly to do w/ it.

[Foxyheart2002]

I paint because it is fun. I will never be a highly paid artist. I am already 60 years old. My work is western and there is not very much demand for it. I use what I can afford to continue doing what I like to do. I have no aspirations of ever having my works to be likened to Rembrandt or anyone else. Those who want the very best archival paints because they want their works to last hundreds of years is beyond me. Mine fetch low hundred$. In my lifetime they will never fetch thou$ands. I guess to those who value their works more than mine, I say go for it. In a hundred years from now, we won’t be around to even care. And even then, it will all be up to how the works are treated once they are sold the first time, not so much how we got the paint on the canvas/board/linen. I feel the most we really have to worry about is the preparation of the surface to paint upon. How many of our best works will end up in someone’s attic anyway?

[FONT="Arial"][FONT="Arial Black"]Sue Kroll, Signature Member ISSA, associate member WAOW and AWA........ Sue's Art .....Musings of a Scratchboard Newbie
I always welcome C & C. Even if I have finished it and applied fixative, I can always apply your thoughts to the next one.[/font]

[TCharlie]

The problem I have with using cheap materials is that somebody is paying good money for the art. When your painting are selling in high 3 figures and upward there is no excuse to not give the client a piece of art that will last. It’s not that expensive to use good materials. I collect art by other artists myself and I don’t care how good you are, I will not pay good money for something that’s going to fade or yellow.

[Georgi]

To be honest, I use cheap paints because I can’t afford the expensive ones. I guess if I could afford it, I would buy the more expensive paints, but the fact and reality of the matter is, I can’t!

Cheers,
Georgi

[Laudesan ( JJ ) Queensland Australia]

The problem I have with using cheap materials is that somebody is paying good money for the art.

The paintings I use the mont marte paint on, and they call it professional grade paint) is the paitnings I paint for the Creative Market. The largest is 12″x16″ and the prices are not too high.

For my larger works, the ones priced in the 3 and 4 figure market,are of course painted with my M.Graham paints. Which I might add are not that more expensive, but are definitely artist grade. They are fast becoming the world leader in quality for money.

JJ
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[Laudesan ( JJ ) Queensland Australia]

To be honest, I use cheap paints because I can’t afford the expensive ones. I guess if I could afford it, I would buy the more expensive paints, but the fact and reality of the matter is, I can’t!

Cheers,
Georgi

…..and don’t feel bad about it. You paint with what you can afford, and what you feel comfortable with.

JJ
Let go of past mistakes and hurts. Forgive and empower yourself. Live the life you were meant to live. And, be at peace with yourself.
MY BLOG
My Youtube videos

[Foxyheart2002]

This reminds me of a jewelry blog I read today. It has to do with pricing jewelry for sale. They made the point about Consumers Reports and toasters. The best working toaster was only $20, but the best seller was $200. People bought it for the looks and the price thinking they were getting a good toaster when, in fact, the cheaper one was the better one. So, I guess unless you take the time to test the paints yourself for lightfastness and ‘quality’ you have to go by what others say. And most of the hype is done by the manufacturers of the paints. Anyone here who uses the ‘better’ paints….whose report are you using saying they are actually ‘better’? How do you know they will not fade after 50 years? Will not peel? Or are you going by anecdotal reports or by the mfr’s reports? If you use them because you actually like the feel, flow, etc., then more power to you. But if you are using them only because so and so said they are better, how can you really be sure? Use what you can afford, what helps you create. Have fun painting.

[FONT="Arial"][FONT="Arial Black"]Sue Kroll, Signature Member ISSA, associate member WAOW and AWA........ Sue's Art .....Musings of a Scratchboard Newbie
I always welcome C & C. Even if I have finished it and applied fixative, I can always apply your thoughts to the next one.[/font]

[Guide]

Since you didn’t publish the name of the artist….is there some a sense of discomfort with the whole thing?

I do feel it a personal, ethical choice.

Since I sell my work, I feel I owe it to the client to use the best possible materials I can afford.

I also buy artwork and research the materials used as best as I can. I want to buy artwork that is going to give me the best quality. Yes, there are certain very good artists I won’t buy because the materials used, in my humble opinion, don’t deserve my hard earned monies. I work to hard and long to foolishly spend it on well executed, questionable quality work. I look at the entire package, not just the artist or the materials.

I’ve seen beautiful works done on corrugated cardboard with house paints, doesn’t mean I am going to buy it, no matter how well it is executed. I won’t throw good money after bad.

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[Einion]

Why not use cheap acrylics?
Because you don’t want to.
Because it’s not the right consistency to do what you want.
Because they don’t have sufficient covering power.
Because they might not be as permanent as the paint should be for the kind of work you produce.

Why use cheap acylics?
Because you want to.
Because you like how they paint.
Because you like how they look when dry.
Because lightfastness/permanence is not an issue for you.

The key issue here I think is clearly not what the artist is comfortable using in terms of how it paints, it’s in whether they are happy with the lightfastness and permanence of the paint. There’s no rule that says they have to be – the Art Police won’t arrest you if you don’t care – but I think with someone who sells fine-art painting they should at least be honest with themselves about this being an important consideration overall; with work in this area some assurance of quality and permanence of materials could be expected.

Einion

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[Einion]

When I asked him what his clients say about the quality of his paints, he said that his clients love his subject matter (vegetables, fruit, other still life) and do not seem to care what paint he uses. Any comments?

I would bet that they are mostly unaware, but even if they are the fact that they are not concerned is not a key point.

For example, labels on a gallery wall generally the title, the dimensions maybe, the medium and the price. As far as medium goes I doubt they ever go into any more detail than just saying “acrylic”, “oil”, “watercolour” or whatever, yes? In other words, all those buyers of oil paintings are making some assumption about the quality of the medium, when it could be done with something as cheap as Van Gogh or something as pricey as Old Holland (or a bit of both). They can’t know and aren’t generally in a position to make an informed decision either way.

And in terms of what a selling painter does, popular ones in particular, that is not any warranty that doing the same is reliable, safe or long-lasting – assume for example he/she didn’t varnish their acrylic paintings, it’s not any assurance that this is a safe practice.

[QUOTE]The working qualities of an artist grade acrylic provide a better overall working experience and encourage more experimentation because they are just more versatile.

I disagree. I’ve used both and I prefer the overall working experience using the bottled acrylics. [/QUOTE]
The important part there I think was that artists’ acrylics are more versatile; I don’t think this is a matter of opinion – assuming we’re talking about tube acrylics versus craft acrylics, the former being thicker can be used at that thickness and all the way down to heavily thinned. With fluid paint you can’t easily go in the opposite direction.

In terms of pigmentation, there’s simply no way to go from paint with less pigment and more water and filler to the equivalent of better pigmentation. And well-pigmented paint can do things you simply cannot do with weaker paint (e.g. cover with a single thin application).

And in terms of pigments themselves, if there are no cadmiums then the best pigments for yellow, orange and red are absent; best here being in terms chroma and opacity.

I think it’s entirely up to the artist. I can’t think of any advantage that a toothpaste-type acrylic would have over a liquid-type–certainly not more versatile.

It is entirely up to each person what to use (of course) but there’s no denying that it is much more difficult to get to anything more bodied starting with liquid paint, compared to the reverse. And apart from the difficulty/hassle of doing this it doesn’t equate with a paint made that way to begin with in certain key respects.

Maybe doing knife paintings would be a tube acrylic advantage–beyond that, I can’t see any more advantages.

Other than what I’ve already mentioned – visible 3D brushmarks? This is important to some painters.

Back to what you use, is lightfastness an issue for you? If it is, are you happy that the paints you use are lightfast enough, i.e. that they are the equivalent of good artists’ acrylics in that respect?

…the British art forger John Myatt fooled the art world using household paint e.g. matt/silk emulsion.
…in fact many people are amazed by what can be done with fairly cheap paint…oh and he uses KY jelly as extender for his colours, again because it’s so cheap

Very important this; I’ve brought it up before with regard to the supposed unique appearance of oil paints

Some of the pigments used in the craft paints are not very lightfast.

Some artists don’t care, others do. It seems to me that an artist is not doing buyers any favors by using non-lightfast paints.

IMHO I believe there’s a lot of marketing hype in “only use quality paints.”

There is indeed. But that alone doesn’t say anything about the equivalency or not of artists’ acrylics and craft acrylics.

Can anyone prove to me that cheaper paints won’t hold up?

You can do this for yourself by doing your own lightfastness tests, this will show that certain paints are not the match of others in that regard.

Einion

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[dances_with_oils]

Pete, I think it’s not about how much you actually pay for the paint or in fact, what viscosity it has. I buy all my paint when it goes on sale or buy it using my business account which gives me a 25% discount. It’s about the quality of the paint and what it contains as fillers, binders, pigment and its overall water content. The more water, and fillers the less likely the paint will have the ability to not cause a problem to the buyer as it ages. How fast that material breaks down will also depend on what else was used with it as well as how the piece is displayed and in what conditions. I always make it a point to ask my patrons where they think the painting might be displayed and what conditions it will be in. I also ask if it’s likely to be moved to a new location over a period of time. Thick paint or liquid paint is a matter of artist choice, but the ingredients/chemical compounds of that paint will make a world of difference in the longer run as well as how it behaves with something as simple as a house move in the winter.

Ever had a piece of yours involved in a fire or been trashed by vandals? Just imagine for a moment that one of the above has occurred and your work is now being examined by a conservationist/restorer. Add in the insurance adjuster and their art experts who also examine the work. Your patron’s insurance will covering what the adjuster and the conservationist finds and the first point will be the materials used. You may, by using cheap paint, cost your patron the replacement value of the work. They may only get a small percentage of what they paid you for it. Try to imagine that phone call. (and as an aside, most insurance companies once they give the patron a replacement piece or replacement costs – the insurance company then owns the damaged works and is in all likelihood going to sell it in a discounted sale. Your reputation may hang on that sale).

Sue, I can appreciate what you are saying but I do research my materials not with the manufacturers but with the conservationists and restorers. I tend to trust them with their opinions of certain paints and mediums. I also tend to stay away from products and supports that have caused a conservationist problems. I do care what happens to my work once I’m long gone because my estate will have an interest in those works. I’m looking to the future where if the current case before the courts comes to fruition, artists and their estates will be receiving royalties from their works when they are resold. I want my work to go up in value not down because the conservation of it is problematic.

I understand where you are coming from with regard to picking a paint because of price points. It really isn’t a good idea to judge a paint on that alone. I tend to judge my paints on what is in the tube as far as ingredients are concerned. There are just some chemicals and combinations of those chemicals that are not a good idea to use if you want to not have a problem later on. I tend to trust the chemical analysis of the paint and the interactions of mediums used. Nothing is going to convince me that using hair gel as a retarder is a good idea, the chemical interaction is simply not something that will last.

Ask a conservationists/restorer what drives them nuts when they have to clean a painting that has been hanging in a smoker’s home or a work that got damaged in a move or was shipped in extreme temperatures to the new owner and the paint stuck to the shipping material or cracked. Those are all problems that can occur not in a hundred years but in a short period of time while you are still selling your work. That’s what I try to think about. I firmly believe that as an artist, you should know more about your paint and mediums than what is simply on the label. Knowing how far you can push the limits of the paint and mediums is a valuable knowledge as an artist. If you couple that with the knowledge of what your paint choice is going to do over any period of time and in any condition, you are helping your patrons.

Georgi, there is no need to apologise for what kind of paint you use as long as you are upfront to your patrons as to what paint you use. I’ve bought lots of work from students but I’ve bought it knowing that they used lower grade paints and have set aside some funds to deal with them if they need work. What I have a problem with is an artist who doesn’t set out what paint and mediums they used and technically then have past the conservation costs onto the buyer without the buyer realizing it or agreeing to it. We have a fabulous artist here in town, they do amazing work but their prints of their work are all done on non-archival paper from an office supply store and framed in dollar store mats and frames. They sell these pieces for a modest amount but if they actually did the prints on archival paper and used archival matting, they could sell it for more – and their patrons would be happy to pay for it. However, at least they are upfront about what material they use and their patrons accept that.

Patrons are not as naive about their collections as an artist would like to think they are and they do pick up on name brands of paints and mediums and recognize the better paints/products. If any of my pieces get stowed in an attic then at least what I’d like to achieve is when they are found by the younger generation and taken to a restorer – they aren’t causing the restorer or the new found owners an expensive proposition.

In acrylics, what you lose on the straights you make up for on the corners. Robert Genn

[ourcassidy!]

Dances with oils…You mentioned to Georgi that there is no need to apologise for kind of paint as long as you are upfront with patrons as to paint used….Are you saying that when you offer a painting you actually list the brand/kind of paints on the info card that is by the painting?

I have never seen that done…As for cleaning because of conditions in the buyers home..smoking etc…I kind of think that is their responsibility…I would never choose materials that I did not think would hold up…and if ask would certainly tell the brand of paints I used…however I have never listed the brand.

I would be willing to bet the majority of folks here on wet canvas have no aspirations of having a painting last 100+ years…I am not saying that is a wrong attitude…not at all…just that most are not professional artist…but rather paint for pleasure…and if they sell a painting that’s all the better. That’s not to say one should not use the best quality of materials they can afford…but again I guess that is in the eye of the painter.

There is room for both sides of this issue and I suspect will be debated for years to come—unless something else comes along to spark new debate. I always think it is interesting to hear others opinions, but as was said in the end I choose materials because of my standards…

Happy painting…Pam

[dances_with_oils]

Pam, I do exactly that. Every painting I sell is accompanied with a Provenance, a high resolution photo of the work for the patron to give to their insurance and a list of the materials used. On the stretcher, I also list the names of the paints and any medium/additives I used as well as what varnish I used. To some it might seem over the top, but at least if the painting gets damaged in transit or gets damaged in a household mishap ( I have quite a funny story about one patron and their 4 year old who decided to add something to the three pieces I did for them – acrylic and maple syrup.. not a good combo.. neither was the mustard, jam or chocolate sauce) the owner can take it in to be restored and there’s no guess work on the part of the restorer – they can check it against their own data and research.

I think to assume that discussions of using quality paint and mediums is limited to whether the work will last a hundred years is assuming that the piece that used cheaper paints even made it past the first transit where it got left on the hot tarmac of the airport apron or froze because it was flown in the cargo hold at 36,000 feet or the first… oops left it in the car while I went shopping and the bag has stuck to the paint… cheap or quality paint will cause problems if presented in the wrong conditions but the repair of such a piece will depend on what was used. Something as simple as water damage can cause the paint to swell and potentially distort the surface in which the artist envisioned as part of their work. The more pigmented the paint the less swelling will occur. The higher quality of paint used the less issues will present itself to the restorer because there simply aren’t sufficient tests to determines what additive or mediums were used or are contained in the paint.

Add in all the current safety nutters out there that are requiring that everything be labelled and consumers are made aware of content etc and it won’t be long before artists will be required to list what they used. The only thing that gives any worth to using cheaper paints is in all likelihood they contain no harmful minerals or substances in the pigment – they are most likely to be all AP labelled.

It’s also expensive for an owner to have tests done on their paintings to discover what it was made with. I feel it’s important to provide that information when it is current and not down the road when I get a call because one of my paintings got damaged. (I keep records of all material used in my work) It only takes a few minutes to record what paint or medium or additive I used while I’m painting. I’ve already done a colour study and chart so I can refer to that as well. So far in all the conversations I have had with restorers or conservationists, none of the paints etc I have used has caused a major problem and they appreciate that I have given the info accurately.

In acrylics, what you lose on the straights you make up for on the corners. Robert Genn

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