ProChroma Pigment Dispersions are not Paint...Yet ! That's where you come in.
We want to give you, the artist, the choice of the quantity, quality and type of paint that you create.
Almost all of us have been there at some point, where we are working on a painting and the paint we are using seems intent on making life difficult.
-It's the right colour but wrong consistency
-It's got woefully low pigment content
-It's so transparent that it takes layer after layer to achieve coverage, and the lack of enough pigment means adding white for opacity just creates a ghostly pastel tint of the desired colour.
-It dries too fast (or too slow)....
This is at the core of why, as an artist and paint maker based in the UK, I created the ProChroma range.
ProChroma colours are professional grade pigments available in incredibly easy to use aqueous dispersions that can be made into your own custom paint simply by mixing with water-based binders and stirring or shaking well.
The power of deciding how much pigment your paint has is in your hands, from glass clear glazes, to opaque coverage in thin ink-like, or thick buttery formulations.
All our dispersions are concentrated single pigment colours, and we are confident that the colour range we have covers the full colour-space gamut, having multiple primary and secondary colours from which to mix just about any colour required.
The colours in our range have been carefully chosen, balancing both performance and price. Some pigments are costly to manufacture, process or just not produced in large quantities and thus expensive due to the demand of a limited supply. To this end, each colour has a series number ranging from series 1 to series 7, which denotes its price bracket.
In the UK, the blue wool scale is the most commonly used industry standardised scale used to measure how resistant to fading a pigment is. The scale is from 1 to 8, where :-
1 - 2 is fugitive to very poor
3 - 4 is poor to moderate
5 - 6 is fair to good
7 - 8 is very good to excellent
The BWS rating is denoted as 2 or 3 numbers, whereby the first number is the pigment's performance in masstone (full strength, heavy application). The second number is the performance when the pigment is tinted with white, to a middle value. The final number being the performance when heavily tinted with white to a very light value, or applied as a very thin transparent application (wash or glaze).
We have avoided offering any known fugitive colours (prone to rapid fading). There are a couple of speciality colours (not deemed core mixing colours) that have 'fair' or 'good' light-fastness properties, that is the minimum we deem acceptable and only offered where there is not a better option for that unique colour. The overwhelming majority of our range offers at least 'very good' and 'excellent' light fastness in masstone.
The Old Way of Paint Making
Traditionally, artist pigments are sourced in their powdered form. In order to make a quality paint from these powders they would need to be ground together on a glass or marble slab with a glass tool called a 'muller'. The pigment powders stick together in clumps known as agglomerates, and any paint made simply by stirring in the powder to a binder will have poor colour saturation and often an undesirable gritty texture. The glass slab and muller work together to force apart the agglomerates and disperse the pigment evenly throughout the binder. This is time-consuming and can require considerable shearing force to fully disperse certain pigments into the binder. Many modern synthetic organic pigments like the phthalos and quinacridones are also somewhat resistant to dispersing in water and so special 'wetting' chemicals are required to enable them to become compatible with water-based systems. Add to this the fact that mulling pigment into acrylic binders is a race against time, as unlike oil paint the acrylic resin dries in minutes not days.
The ProChroma Way
We have done all the hard work and pre-dispersed and de-agglomerated the pigment powders employing high shear industrial machinery and using state of the art dispersing surfactants. These surround each pigment molecule and prevent it from re-agglomerating. So no more grinding of minerals into powder, or hours of mulling powder into a binder is needed to make paint. All that is required is a quick shake of the pigment dispersion bottle to re-disperse any pigment that has settled, then pour and stir into a water-based binder of your choice. (for really fluid binders, adding pigment dispersion and binder to a bottle and shaking gives optimal results)
Binders
Image ProChroma Acrylic binders.
Binders are the functional body of any paint, they act as the glue that binds the pigments to each other in a paint-film, and bind the paint-film to the surface being painted on.
Examples of compatible water-based binders are :-
ACRYLIC
Such as ProChroma acrylic emulsions in various viscosities and gloss/matt finishes, available from this site -here-, or any quality acrylic medium from other acrylic paint manufacturers. You can achieve varying characteristics depending on the acrylic medium you choose such as gel medium, heavy gel medium, fluid or airbrush medium, glazing medium or acrylic structure paste etc. adding a matting substance to the mix allows for creating an extra matt acrylic which due to its passing resemblance to gouache has been given the common name Acrylic gouache, acryla gouache, acryl gouache etc. Unlike true gouache however, it becomes water-resistant once fully dried.
GESSO
Gesso paint or coloured gesso is simply white acrylic gesso mixed with ProChroma pigment dispersions. Acrylic gesso works well as a binder offering a strong and opaque base and the calcium carbonate gives a textured/toothy surface finish. Gesso paint resembles acrylic gouache and is excellent for underpainting, and the matt finish perfect for theatrical scenery painting. ProChroma pigment dispersions are so highly concentrated that they can effectively overcome the strong white colour of the gesso.
PVA (poly vinyl acetate)
Another option is water based PVA glue (sometimes referred to as Elmer's glue , wood glue, or school glue) which can be used as an easily available and low-cost binder, and is great for making non-toxic children's' paint or craft paint. Some PVA glues are available in versions that are waterproof when dry, giving a passing similarity to acrylic mediums, right down to their property of being white/milky when wet but drying clear or translucent. Vinyl emulsions are however chemically different and generally inferior in water/chemical/UV resistance compared to the more modern acrylic emulsions and can take up to a week to become fully cured and water resistant compared to just minutes with acrylic. This of course may be a blessing or a curse depending on how you want your paint to behave.
PVA also comes in the typical washable 'school glue' versions that break down and can be washed away with soap and water. Making it ideal for children's' paints where washability is more important than permanence. These non-waterproof varieties can be a cheap and fun alternative to traditional watercolour and gouache binders for sketchbook work.
GUM ARABIC
Gum arabic is a natural product obtained from the sap of a species of acacia usually available in powdered or crystalline form, and is the binder used in watercolour and gouache paint. Prized for its capacity to bind pigment particles even in very thin applications, plus its characteristic of being able to reactivate over and over when water is added. ProChroma gum arabic is the highest grade in powdered form. It can be stirred into the pigment dispersions directly, creating watercolour or gouache paint without the intensive and time-consuming mulling/grinding together of the binder, water and pigment. Alternatively, it can be mixed with water to create a watercolour/gouache medium.
DEXTRIN
Like gum arabic, dextrin is a natural product obtained from modified plant starch, and is an alternative binder used for watercolour and gouache paint. Equally capable of binding pigments in thin applications on absorbent surfaces like paper, it has a slight advantage of being paler in value than gum arabic (which is naturally honey coloured), making it especially suited for pale colours. on the flip side, gum arabic has a natural plasticity as it dries going through a gum stage before forming a hard film, Dextrin however becomes more gel like as water evaporates eventually forming the final hard film. This makes Dextrin less stringy and easier to brush out, in thick, low water, applications. It does however make it less suitable for making 'pan' style paints where it requires more work to reconstitute with water into a pleasant smooth paint texture than gum arabic.
| |
CASEIN
Casein, is the protein found in milk. Usually available as a powder, (though it is possible to extract directly from skimmed milk by first curdling the milk with a mild acid, this separates the milk into curds (solid lumps) and whey (a watery liquid). It is the curdled solids that are the 'casein' protein. To make the casein curds into a suitable paint binder, they must be rendered water-soluble. This is achieved by dissolving in an alkali solution to form a casein emulsion). Casein has been used historically in water-based paint formulations for many centuries, until the more recent adoption of gum arabic and acrylic. It has had somewhat of a small renaissance in recent years owing to its gouache like handling and matt finish, but with the property of being semi water-resistant once dry.