The Bottom Line
The acrylic paints manufactured by M. Graham & Co. are formulated to have an longer working time than most acrylics -- up to an hour, depending on temperature and humidity. This enables you to work wet-on-wet and blend colors in a way that's more like working with oil paints than with acrylics.
Being used to acrylics that dry rapidly and building up colors by glazing, using M. Graham & Co's acrylics with their longer working time takes a little getting used to, but open up new options.
Pros
- Long working time for acrylics -- up to an hour.
- Extremely strong, saturated colors.
- Tube states if a color is opaque, semi-opaque, or transparent; useful for glazing and mixing.
- Consistency of soft butter, suitable for impasto or brush work.
Cons
- Not the cheapest acrylics, but you do get what you pay for.
- Not as widely available as some other brands of acrylics (try online stores).
Description
- Artists' quality acrylic paints. Available in tubes and jars, with the identical formulation.
- All acrylic paints conform to ASTM D4236 product safety requirements.
- Gloss and matt acrylic mediums available for thinning the colors for glazing techniques.
- Identical pigments used in M. Graham & Co.'s acrylics, watercolors, gouache, and oil paints.
- Easiest way to find these acrylics is online stores, though larger art supply stores may stock them (or ask them to!).
Guide Review - Acrylic Paint Review: M. Graham & Co. Acrylics
I admit, I was skeptical when I saw that M. Graham & Co. claim their acrylics have a long open time of up to an hour. Their leaflet says "Our unique high solids acrylic resin is slower drying with a longer open time that allows subtle blends of color and soft transitions between tones. The slower 'cure' rate of this pure resin allows the surface to be reactivated for the first hour after application allowing striking wet into wet effects." But when I started painting with them, I was pleasantly surprised.
Okay, I didn't get an hour, more like half, but I was painting in very dry and hot (25-30C/80-85F) conditions. In cooler and more humid conditions, I believe you could well get the hour's working time with these acrylics the manufacturer claims.
It took a little getting used to working wet-on-wet with acrylics, but using the transparent Azo Yellow with the Phthalocyanine Blue produced the most beautiful greens (see painting with just these two colors).
I don't have the ability to test the fact that the acrylics made by M.Graham & Co. "contains more solids (acrylic)" which is why they say they're able to "eliminate dependence on commonly used 'thickening' agents" enabling them to "incorporate more pigment in our color for added strength and brilliance". But when you squeeze a color out a tube you're struck by its intensity. The next time someone asks me why they should bother spending money on artist's quality acrylics rather than students, I'll show them these colors!
