Young Blonde Girl Wet In The Bathtub With Acrylic Paints

Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden between 1946 and 1949 had invented a solution acrylic paint under the brand Magna paint. A waterborne acrylic paint called "Aquatec" would soon follow. Otto Rohm invented acrylic resin, which quickly transformed into acrylic paint. Acrylics were first made commercially available in the 1950s. These were mineral spirit-based paints called Magna. In 1953, the year that Rohm and Haas developed the first acrylic emulsions, Jose L. Gutierrez produced Politec Acrylic Artists Colors in Mexico and Permanent Pigments Co of Cincinnati Ohio produced Liquitex colors. These two product lines were the very first acrylic emulsion artists paints. Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Interior "latex" house paints tend to be a combination of binder (sometimes acrylic, vinyl, pva, and others), filler, pigment, and water. Exterior "latex" house paints may also be a "co-polymer" blend, but the very best exterior water-based paints are 100% acrylic. Soon after the water-based acrylic binders were introduced as house paints, artists and companies alike began to explore the potential of the new binders. Water-soluble artists' acrylic paints became commercially available in the 1950s, offered by Liquitex, with high-viscosity paints similar to those made today becoming available in the early 1960s. In 1963, Rowney (now part of Daler-Rowney Ltd since 1983) was the first manufacturer to introduce an artist’s acrylic color in Europe, under the brand name Cryla.
• Techniques
Acrylic artist paints may be thinned with water and used as washes in the manner of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once dry. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color lifting techniques as do gum arabic based watercolor paints.
Acrylic paints with gloss or matte finishes are available, although a satin (semi-matte) sheen is most common; some brands exhibit a range of finish (e.g., heavy-body paints from Golden, Liquitex, Winsor & Newton and Daler-Rowney).Politec acrylics are fully matte. As with oils, pigment amounts, and particle size or shape can naturally affect the paint sheen. Matting agents can also be added during manufacture to dull the finish. The artist can mix media with their paints and use topcoats or varnishes to alter or unify sheen if desired.