Atelier Interactive.  
Use It and Fall in Love.

Atelier Interactive Artists Acrylics.
Discover the versatility, the goodness.
Fall in love all over again.

While I consider myself to be fairly handy, I will never promise you that I can rewire your house, or rebuild a motor. I can however, push paint around with some degree of success. It would be fair to say that I'm pretty much an expert at getting my paint to do what I want (mostly). Because of this, I feel qualified to say that Atelier Interactive is great paint.

One of the benefits of Atelier Interactive is its ability to be "reactivated". Most acrylic paints dry. That's it. Forever locked in. Atelier Interactive has the ability to be kept "mobile" (workable) for much longer than traditional acrylics.

Often this is one of the complaints with using traditional acrylics. People can become frustrated because the paint dries much faster than they're used to. Often we are frustrated enough to hurl the lot in the bin and give up. Atelier Interactive though, solves this problem. In some ways, it bridges the gap between oils and acrylics.

Being able to put colour down, and move it around for a while is quite liberating for those who have got used to fast drying times. The great thing about this product also, is that while you have some of the benefits of an oil paint-like product, you don't have the odours, the mess, or the endless hours of waiting for paint to dry.

I must admit, when Chroma first developed Atelier Interactive, I was a little "challenged". Initially I found the transition very difficult, as I had built my skills and technique around the qualities of traditional acrylics.

BUT NOW! I'm finding that I can paint much faster with less stress. Once upon a time while painting a large skyscape (gradation of colour) any errors often resulted in me having to re-paint the whole area. Now it is just so easy to make minor adjustments on the canvas, knowing I have a little bit more time.

Added to that is the range of mediums that Chroma have developed to support this process. Chroma have developed retarders and slow mediums, even a specialised reactivating medium (Unlocking Formula). This can be used for quite a while after the paint appears to have dried.

If you want your paint to be "locked in" like a traditional acrylic - there are even mediums for that. Fast medium and Fixer is perfect for laying paint down and locking it in quickly. Great for your underpainting. Slap it down. 5 minutes to dry, and back into it.

While on the subject of mediums, there is a whole range of other products to help you build texture and body into your work. Impasto Gel is a great example. Dries clear & glossy (which I like) and "builds the surface" beautifully. Texture medium is another great product for that.

As well as all of that, there are the colours. WOW. I have a few favourites, such as Dioxazine Purple and Pthalo Blue. Napthol Red Light is now creeping in as a fave also. They look so great you kinda wanna eat it. Personally, the thing I like is the strength of pigment. I tend to use very strong colours and break them down with white or other colours. This gives me a great range.

Having strong colours gives you a broader range to play with. It also allows you to create very luscious and deep shadows.

The other thing I like about the paint, is that it is able to be thinned while still maintaining a lot of strength (with either water or a medium). The thinning allows it to be more luminous. There's enough pigment suspended in the binding agent (whatever the heck that is - we'll let the people with the thick glasses worry about that side of it) to allow quite extreme thinning, but still get plenty of coverage. It flows beautifully off the end of the brush.

Just so we're clear, I am VERY biased. I love the product. It's done everything I've asked of it. If I've ever had any doubts about anything, I've had all my questions answered very quickly. A great Aussie product (oi oi oi) with a great bunch of people behind it.

Just talking about paint makes me want to grab a brush and start chucking it about. Heaven.

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