Guest Blogger: J. Richard Secor.
Photo Credit: Original Acrylic Painting, titled “Three-Pueblo-Pots” by J. Richard Secor. Medium: Chroma Archival Oils.
After 12 years as a watercolor painter, I found that I wanted more depth of color and texture in my paintings, so I made what seemed like a natural transition to painting with acrylics. Over the past three years, I experimented with a number of brands of professional acrylic paints and found that the Chroma Interactive Acrylics best fit my style and needs.
Recently, I felt an urge to try painting with oils, just to see if I liked it and to see how it compared with acrylics. So it seemed natural for me to dip my toes in the oil-painting waters by trying Chroma’s Archival Oils.
Earlier this year, I wrote an article detailing my reasons for liking (loving!) the Chroma Interactive Acrylic products. I’ll recap those reasons here, because I was looking for these same positive attributes in Chroma’s oil paints:
- Thick juicy paint, allowing great texture
- Wonderful depth of color
- Longer open time
- Exceptional wet into wet blending capability
Using Chroma Archival Oil Paints
I found the Archival oil paints to be thick and juicy, with a wide range of colors and great depth of color. Applying the paints with either brush or palette knife was very smooth and fluid. Painting with the archival oils did not feel any different from painting with my Interactive Acrylics.
I do a lot of blending wet into wet, and the oil paints performed quite well here too. From the perspective of simply painting, there was simply no noticeable difference between using the oils and using the acrylics.
Clean Up More Complicated with Oils
The cleanup process though, is a different story! I found cleaning up from oil painting to be very messy – too messy to be done inside. I did it outside, (which would be no fun in winter climates!) and could easily go through two rolls of paper towels quickly.
I absolutely dreaded it! I found this to be a significant issue, so when comparing the acrylics to the oils, for me this put acrylics way ahead.
Using Chroma Archival Mediums
In addition to the clean-up, among the common objections artists have to painting with oils are the smell and toxicity of the mediums. The oil paints themselves are reasonably non-hazardous – it’s the mediums that are problematic.
Traditional mediums have a quick rate of evaporation, which releases high concentrations of toxic fumes quickly. With years of regular use, aromatic solvents like gum and mineral turpentine can affect health, so it is wise to avoid too much exposure to them.
Fumes and Odors with Chroma Oil Paints
One of the reasons I like Chroma products is that Chroma is a very health-conscious manufacturer. Their odorless mediums and solvents are quick-drying alkyd resins. And, they evaporate slowly, so very little vapor is generated during a painting session.
The combination of slower evaporation and quicker-drying time make them less potent and hazardous than traditional mediums. I found the mediums and solvents to be 99 percent odorless, and that all-too-familiar and sometimes offensive smell of an oil painting was, for all intents and purposes, not present.
Selecting the Right Medium
As an acrylic painter who uses paint straight from the tube and just good-old-H2O as a medium, I found the medium selection process for the oils a bit confusing. There is a wide range of mediums from which to choose, depending on what technique you have in mind and the effect you want to achieve.
There is a medium for normal brush painting and a different medium for impasto (which needs to be mixed with paint to a recommended ratio). There are others, but I did not try them all because they don’t fit with my impressionistic, at times leaning toward semi-abstract style, or my frequent use of both brush and palette knife on the same painting.
- With the oils, I found that I needed to think ahead about things like:
- Do I mix the medium into the paint, or do I dip my brush into the medium first and then into the paint?
- Did I mix the right ratio for my palette knife work?
This “extra thinking” interfered with the usual free-flow of my painting sessions, though I realized that with time and practice it would probably become second nature.
How did I like Chroma Oils?
I found there to be little or no difference between the Chroma Archival Oils and the Chroma Interactive Acrylics with regard to consistency (thick, juicy); application (easy, fluid); and visual result (depth of color, texture).
The Chroma oils and mediums are quality professional products that minimize the unpleasant aspects of oils, such as toxicity and smell, making them comparable to acrylics in this regard.
When it comes to the final result of how a painting looks, for me there is little to no difference between oil and acrylic when using the Chroma products.
I have found that the Chroma Interactive Acrylics result in a visual appearance that can be easily mistaken for oil, as the curing process of these paints does not create that shiny “plastic” look that some acrylics do.
Personally, I prefer the free-flowing process of working with acrylics over the “plan-ahead” process of working with the oils and oil mediums.
My technique of using multiple instruments is a factor here – with the acrylics I don’t have to think ahead about what medium to use for the process I have in mind – I can just switch instruments and techniques freely.
I am a very neat guy – my wife calls me “Martha”. So I much prefer the soap and water clean-up of acrylics to the lengthy, messy clean-up of the oils and oil mediums. For me there is not enough difference in the end result of the painting to justify the hassle of the clean-up associated with oils.
Having said that, I liked the look and feel of the oils and it was fun to try them. If you do have a hankering to try oils, I highly recommend using the Chroma products, because they are high quality products that overcome some of the traditional drawbacks to working in oils.
Acrylic Paint Review Disclaimer:
Although J. Richard Secor is not an employee of Chroma Paint Company, recently gave a demonstration of Chroma products at an art store in Santa Fe, and was paid for his time. He was hired as an independent contractor for this event.
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Written by Guest Blogger: J. Richard Secor
A landscape and plein air painter, J. Richard Secor is well known for his use of bold, striking colors applied with both brush and palette knife in a free and loose manner. Mr. Secor began painting at age 54, after retiring early from a 32 year career in banking on the East Coast. He is represented by several galleries in the Southwestern USA as well as in Mexico. Visit his website: J.Richard Secor.
Artist’s Statement:
I enjoy painting Plein air in the mountains near my home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and also paint in my home studio. My style, which is primarily Impressionistic, continuously evolves through curiosity, intense observation, sudden inspiration and experimentation. Ultimately the style of any given painting will be the result of how I feel about that particular scene at the time I’m painting it, and is often influenced by the music to which I am listening. I like to paint “outside the lines” and “outside the box” as well as “outside the rules.”
