Golden Heavy Body Artist Acrylics

The original line of GOLDEN Artist Acrylics is known for its exceptionally smooth, thick buttery consistency. It contains the largest assortment of unique pure pigments in a 100% acrylic emulsion vehicle available to the professional artist. These colors offer excellent permanency and lightfastness. There are no fillers, extenders, opacifiers, toners, or dyes added. Each Heavy Body color is formulated differently depending on the nature of the pigment. Colors that tolerate higher pigment "loads" dry to a more opaque, matte finish. Colors that are more reactive and do not accept high pigment loading dry to a glossy finish and tend to be more transparent. Heavy Body colors contain no additives, such as matting agents, therefore the gloss of each color will be different.

Viscosity and Consistency:
GOLDEN Heavy Body Acrylics are noted for their exceptionally smooth, rich, buttery consistency. These paints have the ability to "stand up" and retain brush strokes or palette knife marks on the canvas.

All HB colors are thixotropic in nature. This means that when brushing or stirring, the paints actually lose viscosity and feel much thinner. The faster the paints are moving, the thinner they feel. Returned to a state of rest, the paints gradually increase in thickness until they are again restored to their formulated viscosity.

Film Flexibility:
The HB colors retain excellent flexibility when dry, greatly diminishing the possibility of cracking that occurs in other natural and synthetic polymer systems. The acrylics can absorb the constant stress and strain placed on canvas when shipped or as it expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity. Please note: acrylics begin to harden at 15 degrees Centigrade or 59 degrees Fahrenheit, and become quite hard at temperatures below freezing. This is especially important to remember when shipping a painting in freezing conditions or when unrolling a painting that has been kept in cold storage.

Product Mixing Abilities:
The HB Colors can be mixed with all of our GOLDEN Mediums, Gels and other paint lines, including our Airbrush Colors, Fluid Acrylics, High Load Colors, Iridescent Colors, Paste Paints, and Matte Acrylics. By mixing paint lines, artists can produce a wide range of paint consistencies without compromising color strength. Heavy Body viscosity can also be reduced successfully with water. Remember: the more water added to the acrylics, the greater the subsequent shrinking of the paint layer. Too much water will reduce the binding capability of acrylic paints and tends to flatten out their sheen. Water works most effectively to increase the fluidity of the HB paints if a small amount of Acrylic Flow Release is added to the mixture.

Some artists have used other solvents, including alcohols, to thin the HB Acrylics. All of the acrylics are sensitive to additions of solvent. If you require this addition it is advisable to dilute the solvent first with water to reduce the shocking effect of the solvent. In some cases, adding solvent too quickly will coagulate the acrylic.

Blending with Mediums:
The GOLDEN fluid mediums, including Polymer Medium, Acrylic Glazing Liquid, the GAC Mediums and the Airbrush Mediums, can be used to thin Heavy Body Acrylics. They also add a myriad of unique possibilities to the working and gloss properties of the paint surface. All GOLDEN mediums retain the film integrity of the acrylic, and in some cases they actually enhance the durability of the paint film. (Refer to Gels & Mediums Product Review for more information).

Product Gloss Variations:
When producing the HB line, GOLDEN consciously broke the mold of the acrylics made in the past. Most acrylics were produced to have an even satin sheen across the range of colors. Manufacturers felt artists wanted this even sheen to avoid the differences encountered by oils. In oils, the colors requiring very little oil (lean colors) tended to be very matte, while those colors requiring substantial amounts of oil (fatty colors) tended to be quite glossy.

GOLDEN decided not to add the flattening agents typically added to acrylic paints to unify the product's finish. We decided that each pigment would be made to its own level of matte or gloss depending upon its own unique nature. We also decided not to add opacifiers to our colors (use of opacifiers is critical for coverage of house paints, yet it is also the reason that house colors tend to be quite subdued compared to professional artist colors). These decisions allowed our colors to retain their clearest and cleanest quality, especially when used in washes or glazes. It is always possible to add matting agents and other whitening materials to the product, but once added, it is impossible to take them away. The HB line of acrylics contains no additional flattening agents, opacifiers or other solids that might interfere with the clarity of our pigments.

It is quite evident when looking at our color chart that colors in the HB line do differ in gloss. For example, the sheen of GOLDEN Ultramarine Blue or Burnt Umber is almost a dead matte, whereas the sheen of Green Gold or Dioxazine Purple is extremely glossy. Some artists may find this problematic; yet for many artists the variations offer the same nuances of color that are so appreciated in oil paints and give what many describe as an organic look to the colors. Without the need for opacifiers we can offer colors as similar in hue as the Cadmiums and Hansas, yet quite different in their ability to cover and in their clarity when mixing.