What is acrylic paint color shift?

Acrylic Color Shift is simple.

It means that the hue or color of the wet paint changes when it becomes dry.  Normally, this means the color deeps or darkens?

Why does Acrylic Paint darken when dry?

The easiest way I know to explain this is to say that the gooie stuff in the paint (otherwise known as acrylic binder, acrylic emulsion, acrylic ..FIND WORD HERE)  is white when wet and turns clear when dry.   So while your paint is still wet, some of the color you eye sees is a result of the wet, white, gooey stuff.  When the gooey stuff dries, violia, all your eye now can see is the color of the pigment.

So what’s the big deal about Acrylic Color Shift?

Here’s the problem.  Let’s pretend you are working on the majestic color of the Grand Canyon.  It’s a big a big canyon, so this might take awhile.  You start the work and continue to paint on this for several weeks.  Somewhere around week two you realize you missed a spot.  I mean a big spot.  That inner canyon at the top left of the painting is all wrong.  You need to go over that area, and here is the problem..

you need to mix some nice orange-red to match, exactly, the orange-red you used in that area of the painting two weeks ago.Because of acrylic color shift, what looks like the exact same color when wet will dry darker  upon drying.

Hmmmm…   so mix it to be a tad lighter than you think it should be, hope for the best, and wait for it to dry.

Good quality Artist Acrylic Paint tends to have less color shift

The better quality paints have less color shift than the more economical student grade acrylic paint.  Some brands brag about this, some don’t.  Windsor & Newton’s new line of acrylic artist paint touts to us CLEAR binder practically emliminating all color shift issues.

Don’t Stress:

Most painters learn, with practice, to intuitively compensate for acrylic color shift without concsously know it.  Sort of like Luke Skywalker, you have to ‘Trust the Force’.  If you paint long enough and you spend enough time at the palette and easel mixing color, eventually most painter develop a sixth sense about this.

I think you just get used to it and it becomes no big deal after a while. But realist style painters might disagree with me on this point.  I am not a realist, so color shift for me just makes things a tad bit more interesting.