Has anyone tried the Golden Open acrylics ? Have you mixed them with other acrylics and do you have to use a medium with them? I want to know what people think of them.
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Hello Tracy, I bought a small set of open acrylics to try a couple years ago. They are not as thick as the Liquitex acrilics I use, more of a consistency of Basics. They take a little getting used to but now I love them. I usually mix them with regular acrylics. By mixing them with my regular acrylics (usually Liquitex) it gives me more blending time but also the thick consistency I like. I would recommend buying a small set and taking some time to play with them. I hope this helps 
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I was warned by the artist/manager at the art supply store that 90% of acrylic painters didn’t like them but I didn’t listen and bought them anyway. Found them too transparent for my liking. They mix fine with other acrylic paints and you don’t need a medium with them but didn’t work for me.
Jody,
Thank you for answering my question. I used to paint in acrylics, then switched to oils and now I have such a hard time blending them! I saw a video where they were adding some sort of medium to keep them open longer. I am tempted to try your plan of mixing a small set of open with my regular type.
Hi Barb, Welcome to Art talk ! Thank you for responding to my question. I have hard body acrylics and they just dry before I can blend them. I might try mixing the two and if I still have difficulty then they’ll be good for under painting.
I have used Golden Heavy body acrylic paints exclusively for some time now, and I love them. They are fantastic to use for any genre. I order online through the Artsavings Club. They are such luscious paint, and yet hold the texture that I create using a palette knife. Or I can paint smoothly with them. They are very versatile and I don’t usually need any medium added.
But one caveat, they are imported into South African and the price of the paint has skyrocketed. I have just checked the price of cadmium orange and is R899 for a 148 ml tube. I am retired and that is just too pricey for me. There are cheaper paints available. My last purchase was for 3 tubes and it came to R2023. That was a bit of a shop, but I purchased them anyway because i love the dso much. But i now need to be careful on how much I can so easily spend!
Hello Gillian,
Ihave the Golden heavy body type and it dries too fast for me since I usually paint in oils.
I am thinkingmof adding a medium to slow drying time or adding Open acrylics.
I have never heard od Artsavingsclub so I will have to look them up!
Thank you for responding to my question.
If you have a low humidity, then you probably need a retarder. Our humidity is high, so i dont have as much of a problem, but i do keep a water spray botttle handy just in case that happens.
I didn’t care for them, and ended up giving them away. I think that mediums work a lot better for the purpose of keeping paints open. I like Golden glaze medium, and Liquitex Slow Dri Blending Gel. I mix them in with the paint and it works beautifully. You can also put a few drops of Golden Retarder into your spray bottle, and spritz the pallete. Also I like to use a wet palette (without the sponge, just the paper, it works better for me to keep away mold, altho mold may vary with your location). All with regular heavy body acrylics of whatever brand you prefer.
I bought a small set of Open Acrylics to use on my Gelli Plate for mono printing. Sometimes I want the paint to dry more slowly on the gelli plate. I was able to paint a scene on the plate, scrape, texturize, & brush on in various ways using them, which would have been much more difficult with regular acrylics. I really liked the result. The pulled print does take a long time to dry, almost over night. I would like to experiment more with that technique.
I did do a small landscape painting using them and they were fine. If I remember right, the set came with a tube of blending media? Not sure about that. It is much easier to blend colors and get softer edges with the Open Acrylics.
I’ve been using Golden open acrylics for years now. I think they’re a game changer for acrylic painting. They make it easier to get soft edges and smoother blending.
Plus they don’t dry up on the palette as quickly as regular acrylics. In fact, if you keep them in an airtight palette, they can stay wet for weeks.
They are thinner than the heavy body acrylics, I would say it’s close to the consistency of liquitex soft body paint.
Golden says not to go too thick with them because they may take a long time to dry or remain tacky…so they may not be for you if you like to paint thick impasto paintings.
I don’t mix regular paints into them because that would make them dry faster. I do use regular acrylics within the same painting though.
For example, I may use fluid acrylics to create a wash, and then use open acrylics to finish the painting. The sets of open acrylics come with open thinner which you can use to loosen up paint that starts to get too tacky. It doesn’t contain any binder so it’s not a medium.
As for mediums, there are open gels and fluid mediums that I use sometimes to create transparent glazes of color.
The modern pigments are very transparent (phthalos, quinacridones etc) so if you’re looking for more opacity I would stick to the traditional pigments such as the cadmiums etc.
I hope this helps!
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I like to use Golden open acrylics for printmaking or stenciling into a painting. Use with a Gelli plate and brayer. You can also create some of your own collage papers by applying the paint with a brayer onto deli paper. The metallics are great for that.
Gillian,
Yep, we have low humidity here.
Theresa,
I will have to try out the Glaze medium or the Liquitex slow dri gel. I do have a stay wet palette somewhere !
spray bottle is a great idea too but is it me or do spray bottles seem to not last very long?
I live in the desert so mold won’t be an issue. Thank you for the ideas.
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Thanks Regina,
I’m tempted to try out the open acrylics since I can mix them with the regular.
Chris,
Thank you for the tips. I normally paint in oils so I guess I don’t need them to stay open for too long. The regular acrylics dry WAY too fast for me though. I did see a video that used the thinner you mentioned.
With the opens being more transparent seems they would be great for underpainting !
Lisa,
Welcome to ART talk! Thank you for responding to my question. So many great tips and ideas here.
Chris,
Although I’m really a watercolor painter, I love painting with Golden OPEN acrylics. They give me a break from watercolors. I have taught myself a technique of painting with OPEN that I use a lot - It’s similar to what you described about using regular acrylics with OPEN acrylics. I usually block in my painting (I paint on Linen panels) with a thin coating of regular acrylics which dry really fast, then paint the rest of the painting with OPEN. When painting with OPEN, I hardly ever use a thinner or a medium - just paint.
BTW - thanks for your YouTube lessons - much appreciated !!!
I just tried them myself for the first time and unfortunately they didn’t work for me. They claim 30-60 min wet time and 1-3 hrs workable time, but that was not my experience. I got a maximum of 10 minutes wet time in the best conditions and workable up to about 30 minutes. I have to keep the humidity high because of my autoimmune issues, and I mean above 55%. I even bought the open thinner which seemed to just break the paint. I even tried a fine misting bottle with distilled water. I did everything their resource sheet said and even tried watching videos. Maybe it was just old stock from Amazon or something but I’m abandoning them for water soluble oils. Unfortunately I have to wait 2 weeks to apply over them so this painting won’t make the show. I’m glad people like them though. It’s always nice when you find a medium you like. I just thought I would provide my experience with them.
They didn’t work for me either - just couldn’t get the hang of it , so back to oils