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Acrylics continue to be the fastest growing segment of the fine art market. Through our custom work with artists, museums and conservators all over the world, we have assembled a formidable range of color choices, and continue to work to develop new and unique colors for our customers.

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O P E N A C R Y L I C S : • Remain wet far longer on palette during painting sessions

• Excellent blending characteristics

• Can be used with natural fiber brushes

• Less wasted paint due to drying and palette loss

• Available in 80 traditional colors

Feels Like No Other Paint!

OPEN Acrylics feature a unique balance of properties and relaxed working characteristics that make them an ideal choice when blending, softening, shading, glazing, and creating fine detail.

Stays Wet Longer!

OPEN Acrylics resist skinning and remain wet on the palette for extended periods. Color mixes remain useable longer. OPEN Acrylics can be reconstituted for a period of time once “set” using water, fresh paint, or OPEN Mediums and Thinner, and can be easily washed from brushes.

Expands The Boundaries of Acrylics!

OPEN Acrylics are ideal for a wide range of traditional techniques and are recommended for artists whose painting styles benefit from extended working time and blendability, such as portraiture, landscape, and plein air painting. OPEN Acrylics can also be used for other techniques such as monoprinting and screenprinting.

Adjusting Made Simple!

Use OPEN Mediums and Thinner to control viscosity while maintaining the maximum working time. To accelerate drying time, OPEN Acrylics may be blended with GOLDEN Acrylics, Gels and Mediums. Because of the slow drying nature of these paints, it is recommended that work be left to dry for 30 days or longer before varnishing.

FAQWhat are OPEN Acrylics and how are they different from GOLDEN Heavy Body Acrylics?

OPEN Acrylics are a new line of professional colors and mediums with a unique set of properties designed to complement GOLDEN Heavy Body and Fluid Acrylics, expanding the range of techniques that are available to artists who prefer to use acrylics. OPEN Acrylics are produced in a softer, creamier consistency than the Heavy Body Acrylics and feature a long, relaxed working time that invites the acrylic painter to work in ways that were previously not thought possible with acrylics, like portraiture, plein air painting, monoprinting and screenprinting.

Which product is right for me – GOLDEN Heavy Body or OPEN Acrylics?

Heavy Body and Fluid Acrylics are formulated for maximum pigment loading and therefore deliver dense, rich color and the ability to efficiently color GOLDEN Gel Mediums and Molding Pastes. However, along with this performance feature comes the relatively fast drying times that are characteristic of acrylic paints and mediums. OPEN Acrylics are formulated with an emphasis on open time and blendability and feature a unique and remarkably relaxed working time that

facilitates painting styles that rely on blending, softening, shading, glazing and creating fine detail. They remain wet on the palette for extended periods of time and are therefore suitable for situations such as plein air painting. The unique drying properties of OPEN Acrylics allow them to be used with natural fiber brushes without fear of damaging them, and also work well for monoprinting as well as screenprinting.

How much working time will I get with OPEN Acrylics?

The working time you will experience will depend on how thickly you prefer to work. OPEN Acrylics resist skinning and remain wet on the palette for extended periods. Thin layers will “tack up,” allowing additional layers to be applied and blended. Thin applications that have “tacked up” can be reversed for additional working time with the addition of fresh paint, OPEN Acrylic Gel (Gloss), OPEN Acrylic Medium (Gloss) or OPEN Thinner. Thicker applications will remain workable for an hour or more.

How do I use the OPEN Mediums and Thinner?

OPEN Mediums are used to maintain the maximum working time of OPEN Acrylics when reducing the color concentration for glazing and/or adjusting

the consistency of color mixes. OPEN Acrylic Gel (Gloss) is supplied in the same consistency as the colors. OPEN Acrylic Medium (Gloss) is formulated to a lower viscosity, and is used to maintain open time when a more fluid mixture is desired to increase flow. OPEN Thinner contains no binder, and is intended to be used to replace the materials that evaporate from the paint on the palette during long painting sessions. Use OPEN Thinner to adjust the workability of colors on the palette and maintain working properties.

Can I mix OPEN Acrylics with GOLDEN Heavy Body and Fluid Acrylics, Gels & Mediums?

OPEN Acrylics are compatible with GOLDEN Acrylic Colors, Gels, Pastes and Mediums. Blending OPEN Acrylics with these GOLDEN products will proportionately speed up drying while shortening the working time, and offers a means to adjust open time to suit individual preferences. Blending OPEN Acrylics with GOLDEN Heavy Body and Fluid Acrylics will also provide an increase in opacity, when desired.

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The Quinacridone Family

There are more Quinacridones in the GOLDEN OPEN line than in any other acrylic line of paint. Quinacridone pigments produce seven intense colors ranging from deep yellow to vibrant violet. All of the Quinacridones, because of their vibrant undertones and high transparencies, tend to be excellent mixing colors. They tend not to muddy or gray, retaining their brightness.

Perhaps the most important GOLDEN Quinacridone color is Quinacridone Crimson, a color with excellent lightfastness and similar working qualities to the more fugitive Alizarin Crimson. GOLDEN Quinacridone Crimson possesses the deep burgundy mass tone as well as the bright, rosy undertone of traditional Alizarin. GOLDEN”s Quinacridone Crimson has been used by conservation professionals to replace the fugitive Alizarin when restoring paintings. Like all of GOLDEN’s Quinacridones, Quinacridone Crimson is exceptionally transparent and works particularly well as a mixing color. Mixing Quinacridone Crimson with Phthalo Green B/S will almost magically produce one of the deepest blacks imaginable.

Unique to GOLDEN’s

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product line are the standout colors Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold and Quinacridone Burnt Orange. These Quinacridones have a luminosity that rivals the richest oil colors. Their mass tones tend to be quite dark, yet their undertones are incredibly vibrant. Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold looks very close to a Burnt Sienna in its mass tone, yet its undertone has a yellow fire not found in any Sienna. Similarly, Quinacridone Burnt Orange has a brown-red mass tone that reveals a brilliant red orange underneath.

Quinacridone Red is GOLDEN’s recommendation when a very intense mixing magenta primary is requested. It is very close in hue to the color gels produced by KodakÒ for primary magenta at 5500 Kelvin. Quinacridone Magenta and Violet tend to be excellent choices for mixing colors in the lavender through purple range, with the addition of various transparent blues. Quinacridone Red, Red Lt., Magenta and Violet produce high intensity pinks through lavenders when mixed with white. GOLDEN recommends using these colors when a punch of a fuchsia or fluorescent color is needed, yet permanency is also required, for a particular work of art.

The OPEN Acrylics line is divided among inorganic and organic pigments.

Inorganic Pigments

Some inorganic pigments have been around for centuries and some for millennia. They are produced either with naturally mined pigments (sienna, umber, ochre) or with synthetically manufactured pigments, (iron oxide, carbon black, etc). Inorganic pigments may also be produced using a combination of these two processes. Pigments that are both mined and manufactured include the Cadmiums, Cobalts, and Titaniums.

Organic Pigments

The organic pigments are a group of colors that are synthetically produced through complex carbon-containing chemistry involving various materials including petroleum, coal tar and natural gas. Many of these pigments have their roots in the chemistry of the 1800’s, although widespread production didn’t really begin until the 1930’s. Even though they have only been available for several decades, organic pigments have demonstrated remarkable abilities to withstand the impact of light and weather.

PIGMENT FAMILIESThe Cadmium Family

The second largest pigment family within GOLDEN’s OPEN line is the Cadmium family. GOLDEN was the first company to introduce concentrated Cadmiums within an acrylic line. Before this occurred, other acrylic paint companies were using less expensive Cadmiums co-precipitated with Barium Sulfate.

The Cadmiums range in hue from the glowingly bright Cadmium Yellow Primrose to Cadmium Red Dark. As a class of pigments, the Cadmiums are some of the most opaque of all colorants. Additionally, within their hue range they provide some of the most intensely vibrant mass tones. Because of their opacity, when mixed with other colorants they tend to produce rather dull hues. Cadmiums do mix with other Cadmiums quite well, however. Mixing a Cadmium Orange with a Cadmium Yellow will produce a deep yellow or light orange and the mixtures will retain the brightness of a pure Cadmium color.

GOLDEN is one of the only acrylic manufacturers to include a yellow hue that is lighter than the typical Cadmium Yellow Light. This unique pigment called Cadmium Yellow Primrose is as bright as some fluorescent colors, yet offers the same stability as

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PIGMENT FAMILIESthe other Cadmiums in the GOLDEN line.

Cadmiums have been considered somewhat controversial as a pigment class because of the claims of toxicity of the pigment. We do know that soluble Cadmium can be quite dangerous and produce heavy metal poisoning. All of the Cadmiums used within our product line have gone through extensive testing to assure that they have extremely low soluble Cadmium content. This is not the end of the controversy though, since more recent theories have suggested that even non-soluble Cadmium pigments could potentially be toxic. OSHA has created strict requirements for work environments where Cadmium pigments are being used. This is of extreme importance legally for artists, schools or any business that hires other employees or is responsible for public safety. If you are using Cadmium dry pigments within your work process, you are not, according to the new OSHA regulations, within allowable limits of exposure for yourself and those within your care.

The Phthalocyanine Famil y

The Phthalocyanines are known as the oldest organic pigments. The GOLDEN OPEN line contains

4 Phthalocyanine colors, including Phthalo Green (Yellow Shade) and Phthalo Green (Blue Shade), and two Phthalo Blues, (Green Shade) and (Red Shade). These different Phthalocyanine colors actually contain the various pigment forms of the Phthalocyanine group.

The Cobalt Family

The Cobalt pigments are unique within the OPEN line. This range of 7 colors includes Cerulean Blue and Blue Deep (these contain both Cobalt and Chromium), Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Green, Cobalt Titanate Green, Cobalt Turquois, and the newest addition, Cobalt Teal. Cobalt Teal is an unusually clean and high chroma shade that possesses excellent lightfastness and opacity.

The Pyrrole Family

The Pyrrole family is one of the newer pigment families to be developed. The Pyrroles are almost as opaque and, in fact, brighter than our Cadmium colors. Pyrrole Orange, Pyrrole Red Dark, and Pyrrole Red exhibit excellent opacity and lightfastness. They also offer clean mixing with other organics, unlike their Cadmium counterparts, which produce muddier blends.

Tblack. For this reason, the mixing set does not include black.

Adding a color’s complement reduces the chroma of the mixture. For example, mixing a small amount of Phthalo Green into Naphthol Red Light reduces its intensity, however, it also changes the value of the color. To avoid reducing the chroma of the mixture, use the Neutral Gray of the same value as the color you are trying to mix, or mix a gray from the black produced with your Green and Red mixture with Zinc or Titanium White.

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GOLDEN OPEN Acrylics are a new line of professional artists acrylics that feature uniquely relaxed working characteristics and a versatility that allows artists to explore techniques where acrylics are normally challenging to use.

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This is called mixing complements. For example, we see that Phthalo Green and Naphthol Red Light are almost directly opposite one another. The mixing of these two will yield a simple black. For this reason, the mixing set does not include black.

Adding a color’s complement reduces the chroma of the mixture. For example, mixing a small amount of Phthalo Green into Naphthol Red Light reduces its intensity, however, it also changes the value of the color. To avoid reducing the chroma of the mixture, use the Neutral Gray of the same value as the color you are trying to mix, or mix a gray from the black produced with your Green and Red mixture with Zinc or Titanium White.

Varying Tinting Strength of Colors

Before we explore the blending possibilities and color relationships, we need to describe the colors in the mixing set. The pigment loads are not balanced as with “student grade” colors. With professional “artist grade” colors, the high tinting colors are much more powerful than lower tinting colors. The highest tinting colors are Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green. Next are Naphthol Red Light and Quinacridone Magenta. Hansa Yellow Medium has very little tinting strength.

Relative Tinting Strength of Colors

To mix the colors, use this table as a guide. For example, to mix Turquois, mix equal parts of Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green. To mix Bright Green, mix 1 part Phthalo Green with 9 parts Hansa Yellow Medium.

Tint Strength of Hansa Yellow Medium: In order to balance the much stronger tint strength of Phthalo pigments, try Hansa Yellow Opaque. It provides greater opacity; however, some chroma or intensity may be lost. To achieve some of the more transparent colors, add transparent Gel or Polymer Medium

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THE ARTIST’S COLOR WHEEL AND THE MIXING PRIMARIESArtists are familiar with color wheels showing Red, Yellow and Blue as primaries and Purple, Orange and Green as the secondaries. Secondaries result from the mixture of two primaries, i.e. Red and Yellow make Orange.

This color wheel shifts colors around dramatically. It usually forces color choices such as Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow and Ultramarine Blue, all of which use opaque inorganic pigments. These colors, although beautiful in their own right, severely limit color mixing possibilities. The resulting mixtures show lower values and chromas than mixtures with organic pigments.

Mixing Complementary Colors

We filled the color wheel with our color names so we can use it to develop an understanding of mixing possibilities. Mixing from opposite sides of the color wheel will yield black or gray.

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ACHIEVING OPACITY WITH WHITE

If you have ever been to a paint store and had color mixed, you have seen the process of adding white. Each house paint color, to develop opacity, is mixed with white. Most brands produce three different mixing whites; one very strong white for pastel hues, one middle strength white for middle color values and one fairly weak white for deeper tones of color.

Adding Titanium White to any of your colors will increase the coverage of your color. This is especially true for the more transparent colors. It is also a general rule that the lighter the original value of a color, the less dramatic the value shift when you add Titanium White. Adding Zinc White to transparent colors will not dramatically increase your opacity. It can be used to create subtle, tinted glazes. Keep in mind the resulting mixes will not provide good coverage.

If you choose to increase opacity, but do not want to change your color value, then you must first mix a gray of the same color value. As before, this will reduce your chroma, but will allow you to maintain your balance of light to dark while increasing your opacity.

Naphthol Red Light

Hansa Yellow Medium

Quinacridone Magenta

Phthalo Blue GS

Phthalo Green BS

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Located

Golden Artist Colors, Inc. 188 Bell Road,New Berlin, NY 13411-9527 USA

Contact

Toll Free: 800-959-6543 Fax: 607-847-6767 gactech@goldenpaints.com

www.goldenpaints.com© GOLDEN Artist Colors, Inc

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C.P. Cadmium Yellow Primrose

I Exc.** 5 PY 35 Inorganic Cadmium Zinc Sulfide - (CC)

C.P. Cadmium Yellow Medium

I Exc.** 4 PY 35 Inorganic Cadmium Zinc Sulfide - (CC)

Hansa Yellow Light

II V.G. 7 PY 3 Organic Arylide Yellow

Hansa Yellow Opaque

I Exc. 5 PY 74 Organic Arylide Yellow 5GX

Nickel Azo Yellow

I Exc. 8 PY 150 Organic Nickel Complex Azo

Transparent Red Iron Oxide

I Exc. 7 PR 101 Inorganic Synthetic Iron Oxide

Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold

I Exc. 7 PO 48/PY 150

Organic Quinacridone/Nickel Complex Azo

Indian Yellow Hue

I Exc. 8 PY 73/PY 150/PR 206

Organic Arylide Yellow/Nickel Complex Azo/Quinacridone

C.P. Cadmium Orange

I Exc.** 4 PO 20 Inorganic Cadmium (Sulfo-Selenide)-(CC)

C.P. Cadmium Red Light

I Exc.** 3 PR 108 Inorganic Cadmium (Sulfo-Selenide)-(CC)

C.P. Cadmium Red Medium

I Exc.** 3 PR 108 Inorganic Cadmium (Sulfo-Selenide)-(CC)

Pyrrole Red I Exc. 4 PR 254 Organic Pyrrolopyrrol

Naphthol Red Medium

II V.G. 6 PR 5 Organic Naphthol ITR

Quinacridone Magenta

I Exc. 7 PR 122 Organic Quinacridone

Alizarin Crimson Hue

I Exc. 6 PR 122/PR 206/PG 7

Organic Quinacridone/Quinacridone/Chlorinated Copper

Dioxazine Purple II V.G. 3 PV 23 Organic Carbazole Dioxazine

Ultramarine Blue I Exc.** 7 PB 29 Inorganic Polysulfide of Sodium-Alumino-Silicate

Cobalt Blue I Exc. 5 PB 28 Inorganic Oxides of Cobalt and Aluminum

Cerulean Blue, Chromium

I Exc. 5 PB 36:1 Inorganic Oxides of Cobalt and Chromium

Phthalo Blue (Green Shade)

I Exc. 5 PB 15:4 Organic Copper Phthalocyanine

Manganese Blue Hue

I Exc. 6 PB 15:4/PG 7/PW 4

Mixture Phthalocyanine/Chlorinated Copper Phthalocyanine/Zinc Oxide

Lightfastness

The Lightfastness Ratings are provided by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) in the standard for “Artists’ Acrylic Emulsion Paints”. (ASTM D 5098, Annual Book of Standards, Volume 6.02). Colors with a Lightfastness Rating of I are considered Excellent (“Exc.”) and those with a Lightfastness Rating of II are Very Good (“V.G.”). Where Lightfastness Ratings have not been obtained according to ASTM test protocol, “N/A” is used. In those cases, data from pigment manufacturers and our own test facilities have been used and an appropriate description assigned under Permanency.

Lightfastness I: Excellent - Artist colors are let down with white to arrive at a pastel shade. These samples are exposed to an accelerated dose of of light energy equivalent to that which would be expected to occur during approximately 100 years of museum-lit conditions. This exposure is condensed into approximately 15 weeks of testing time, or less, depending upon the accelerated test methods used. For the purposes of the official test, before and after color difference is determined using a spectrophotometer, and difference units are mathematically calculated. Less than 4 units color change earns a color the designation of Lightfastness I. In practicality, this means that a visual comparison of the unexposed and exposed samples, when held adjacent, would reveal, at worse, a barely perceptible color change.

Lightfastness II: Very Good - Under the same test conditions, a visual comparison of adjacent unexposed and exposed samples will reveal a perceptible color change. This change will quickly become imperceptible to most observers as the sample pieces are moved apart from one another. When expressed mathematically, change falling within the range of 4-8 units is covered by this category.

Perm: Lightfastness and durability based on our testing and manufacturer’s data.

** The identified colors are sensitive to a combination of moisture and UV radiation and are not recommended for outdoor use.

Permanency

Exc. - Excellent, V.G. - Very Good, Poor

Opacity/Transparency

We have determined that an eight-point scale is most appropriate for describing the properties of our colors. We have assigned each color in the chart a number from 1 (most opaque) to 8 (most transparent) to indicate the opacity/transparency of that color.

C.I. Name

The Colour Index Name is internationally recognized codes assigned to a particular “colorant” by both the Society of Dyers and Colourists and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists. The C.I. Name consists of the category (type of dye or pigment), general hue, based on its chemical constitution. For example, PB 60, Anthraquinone Blue, indicates a specific Pigment Blue.

Type: Designates whether the pigments used in a color are based on Organic or Inorganic chemistry. When containing both types, the term Mixed is used.

Chemical Description

Abbreviations

C.-P. - indicates concentrated cadmium pigments (CC), G.S. - Green Shade, B.S. - Blue Shade, R.S. - Red Shade, Y.S. - Yellow Shade

© GOLDEN Artist Colors, Inc

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