Acrylic Paint Not Gaining A New Fan

[cercyonis]

I'm making a clutch purse with flowers on the front. I wanted the flowers to be bright yellow, but I don't have a dye that will do that. Is there such a thing? I tried yellow acrylic paint, and it was horrible. I can't stand the chalky look on my beautiful leather. I started by diluting it with water, which just seemed to make the yellow chalk spread out more. So I applied it straight up. Yuck. I wiped it all off with solvent. I hope that was an okay thing to do -- I found out by accident that it removed it. I'm assuming deglazer does the same thing.

I found few threads on using regular oil paints. I put a little yellow on some scrap leather, and the color was definitely better than acrylic. I'm worried about the oil penetrating the leather and what effect that might have, though. Plus, I've heard drying time is protracted, so I'm not going to do oil paint on the clutch purse.

I purchased a bunch of different Sharpies and other markers, which are quite nice for solid coloring. Not too great where subtle blending is required, though.

What other options are there for bright colors?

~Jennifer

[Timd]

What kind of acrylic are you using? I've had pretty good success with yellow, using craft paint from A.C. Moore. Go to my profile and see my latest purse, it's got yellow flowers.

[cercyonis]

Thanks for the reply, Tim. I was using Createx airbrush acrylic. I bought out someone's hobby, and a lot of that kind of paint came with the deal. I didn't think it was only useful for airbrushing, but maybe? I tried a different type after reading your post, and it worked a lot better. The new paint does have some sparkles in it, though, which might help. I really like your black-eyed susan purse! I'm putting yellow Echinacea flowers on my work. Maybe I'll be brave enough to post pics when I'm done.

[Timd]

Please don't be afraid to post pictures, we look forward to them around here. Glad I could help.

[Spinner]

Hey Jennifer, sounds like you have an old/bad/expired batch of paint. A fresh tube of acrylic paint shouldn't be chalky it should be very smooth and bright with the consistency of toothpaste.

Water works to thin them out but for greater control and protection, a thinning medium works better. Thin is down to the consistency of milk and layer it on versus dipping the brush straight into the tube/pool to get nice translucent colors that will have better adherence and color depth.

Acrylics can be your friend! For brands, I like Angelus leather paints & Golden Fluid Acrylics w/ Golden Airbrush Medium (even when brushing them by hand).

Chris

[cercyonis]

Thanks, Chris. Beautiful green and blue in that picture!

[OrchidNoir]

Hey Jennifer, sounds like you have an old/bad/expired batch of paint. A fresh tube of acrylic paint shouldn't be chalky it should be very smooth and bright with the consistency of toothpaste.

Water works to thin them out but for greater control and protection, a thinning medium works better. Thin is down to the consistency of milk and layer it on versus dipping the brush straight into the tube/pool to get nice translucent colors that will have better adherence and color depth.

Acrylics can be your friend! For brands, I like Angelus leather paints & Golden Fluid Acrylics w/ Golden Airbrush Medium (even when brushing them by hand).

Chris

The Createx airbrush acrylics should not behave that way (OP), I agree with the old/bad/expired totally. As to the consistency, this line doesn't start in the toothpaste range, but rather already in the milk-ish range. I use them especially for their metallic/pear/iridescent lines, those are just dreamy to use as long as they are kept well mixed, and no, I don't currently own an airbrush. ;-)

I will also totally second the Golden line, can't say anything on the Angelus because I haven't tried them personally, but I can say that I also like Liquitex for acrylics.