The Best of Both Worlds.

Using Oils with Acrylics.

Explore these possibilities:

With Atelier Interactive the gap is closing between acrylics and oils.

You can start with acrylics and keep going as long as you want to, yet you can get it to dry quickly too when you have finished a session. If you choose, you can then switch to oils or just keep going. Using acrylics has become pleasurable, but the oils are also very enticing. In the studio you can start with acrylic, because it’s easier to make changes, and then see what happens.

With Archival Oils, there are no problems with toxic odours because the mediums are low odour and safe. The paint dries quickly, in 1-2 days, yet you can work through a session without having to worry about using a water spray as the oil paint remains workable.

It is possible to do sharp textured acrylic with Modelling Compound, but the oil gels are markedly better and more spontaneous and they dry without problems. Standard brush application thickness looks rather similar between Atelier Interactive and Archival Oils. In addition, after they are varnished it is very hard to tell which is which.

Controlling tonal shift with Interactive is now more manageable as described in the section on tonal change. Archival Oils are very appealing to finish off with since there is no problem with tonal shift, you do not need to use a water spray and in non-impasto applications the paint still dries quickly.

Atelier Interactive is much more seductive to use than traditional acrylics, but Archival Oils are even more seductive and sensuous to use. You can have both types of paint, deciding what to do next when you get to it.

When Archival Flow Gel is used at the start for laying in the early tacking characteristic can be used throughout a painting session.

Archival Thin Liquid Medium can also be used horizontally or for very fluid glazes. If it is used to loosen the paint, you will use less than when using Flow Gel to reach any given viscosity, but it will also tack up in the same way.

When choosing mediums, try starting with Archival Smooth Gel and Archival Flow Gel and branch out from these if necessary.

Always keep bottled mediums capped when not in use. Decanting larger bottles into empty 250ml bottles reduces exposure to air. Fast oil mediums are reactive to oxygen and need to be sealed.