The Interactive colour range is broad enough to meet all professional needs. The colours themselves are exceptionally pigment rich. Many acrylics, even those of professional quality, need several applications before a satisfactory result is achieved in terms of colour strength. With Interactive, even the first thinly brushed out coat has substance to it. In fact, Interactive can go beyond this; it may well become a serious addition to the genus of watercolour, tempera, and gouache paints in that it possesses watercolour characteristics, but, in addition, has many additional (and unique) qualities. At the other end of the scale, the richness of pigment means that Interactive, by itself, with water or with mediums, is also a valuable addition to the canon of acrylic and oil paints. Chroma literature makes it clear that adding to this latter genus is the primary aim behind the creation of Interactive.

Superior Colour Mixing

Mixing Interactive hues produces clean, vibrant, colour mixes though there is some shift in colour from wet to dry. Most impressively, the resultant colour mixes can be altered further to create a range of distinct tints, tones, shades, vibrant colour mixes 2) producing a range of and shades. For the serious artist, this ability is very welcome as it is not something one can take for granted with all makes of paint. For example, mixing a brown from red-orange and violet-blue is a simple exercise. In practical painting, however, producing a distinct tint or tints from that brown is almost always necessary yet adding white to the brown frequently results not in pale brown but coloured grey. This is one reason many amateurs despair of colour mixing and rely on a large selection of manufactured colours. With Interactive, artists can re-discover the pleasures of colour mixing.

Tinting and Toning

In order to mix tones and shades from an Interactive colour or a mixed colour, the artist can usefully experiment with Toning Mid Grey and Carbon Black respectively. For Tints, both Titanium White and Tinting White should be tried. Despite the fact both are based on Titanium White there are subtle but distinct differences in their tinting abilities. The Titanium White hue, being opaque, produces solid, somewhat pastel-like tints, each of which is a clear step up from the previous tint. Tinting White is Mica Pearl/Titanium and is translucent. It produces a greater range of tints, slightly more grey looking, and somewhat closer in appearance to the original colour. Tinting White, speaking subjectively, is an easier colour to work with as it is lighter bodied and so can be applied to the mix with somewhat greater precision. No one White is better than the other, rather it is a matter of which produces the results best suited to the requirements of the artist. In all other manufacturer's ranges, Tinting White is normally made with Zinc White. In the Interactive range, as stated, it is Mica Pearl/Titanium. Interactive Tinting White is a very interesting colour and a viable (possibly superior) alternative to Zinc White. In addition to creating tints it can also be applied directly in painting. I have used it to help create the translucent effect of raindrops in my work "Catching Raindrops" and for the ghostly white-faced character of Death in "Night, Death, and the Devil."

Painting With Interactive

When using Interactive in a 'painterly' manner, the handling is very different from conventional professional-quality acrylics. Interactive does not dry quickly into a solid mass which must then be painted over. As stated above, it can be worked wet on wet, wet on semi-dry, and wet on dry. Having used Interactive for some months my opinion is Chroma would have been justified in designating it as an entirely new genus of artist's paint. The handling qualities of Interactive are closer to oil than acrylic save that the feeling coming through the brush or palette knife when manipulating the paint is that Interactive is a good deal lighter than oil.

To state the point precisely, Interactive has similar behavioural qualities to oil but with less drag and heaviness. It may be that Interactive is what manufacturers were striving for (but failed to accomplish) when they created water-based oils. This is not to say Interactive is merely an oil substitute or alternative. There is so much to discover about Interactive in practical painting that any classification is premature at this stage. It may well be, however, that Interactive is a new professional quality paint per se, not acrylic, not oil, but combining elements of both and having additional unique properties of its own.

Surface Preparation

I have used Interactive on a variety of self-prepared and commercially prepared surfaces but, in particular, was interested in its adhesion qualities on a commercially-primed canvas. Chroma literature advises that surfaces, including commercially prepared canvases, be given two coats (minimum) of gesso to help adhesion. As an experiment, I painted some works on commercially prepared canvases without additional priming with gesso. I did this as most artists of my acquaintance, even professionals (sometimes, especially professionals) do not bother to prepare canvases further. My experiments indicate it is possible to paint on a commercially-primed surface with Interactive but would agree with Chroma that further coats of gesso do help adhesion. For the initial thinly laid down undercoats, the surface of a standard commercially-primed canvas has a somewhat slippery feel to it.

Some Suggestions

Lastly, I note some caveats and make some recommendations. Chroma has designated Interactive as an acrylic. Acrylics tend to be characterised as either Heavy Body paints or Fluids. If one views these two descriptions as opposite ends of a scale, I would suggest Interactive comes closer to Fluids then Heavy Body paints. While, as stated above, Interactive is suitable for impasto painting some artists might prefer a paint with a weightier feel to it and one where the brushstroke retains a more three dimensional quality once dry.

I have no doubt about the longevity of the Interactive colours. While I would expect this of any professional paint it is still clearly documented in Chroma literature. I would suggest it might be advantageous to Chroma to emphasise also the permanence and durability of the paint itself. The technical literature on Archival Oils makes it clear permanence of the paint is something Chroma has gone further to address than any other paint company. I am sure that equal attention was paid to this when creating Interactive.

The reasons I put forward the suggestion about giving more information on permanence are as follows. Compared to conventional acrylics the paint has a somewhat fragile feel to it when touched where there is an impasto effect. In an early manifestation of the new Chroma website there was an implied reference that the paint may lack the durability of conventional acrylics. The paint is frankly so good and has so many virtues that professional artists, generally a cynical lot, might think that it was all too good to be true and wonder if there is some drawback to Interactive.

In conclusion, on the basis of my experiences to date, Atelier Interactive is an outstanding new type of artist's paint.