I was watching the CHA 2015 demo videos and made the mistake of watching Dina Wakley demo her heavy body paint which has actually been out for almost a year now. Ranger and Dina are bringing out 4 new colors and a pen tip for the paint tubes. I have used Liquitex Basics and Distress Paint so I am not a novice at acrylic paint. Since the new 2015 colors and the paint tube tip are not in stores yet I went ahead and ordered the original 12 just to see how they work. The colors are beautiful, just beautiful. They go on and spread really much better than Liquitex Basics. It takes a very small amount of paint to paint a small art journal page or to spread a little color on the front of a card.
So far I have used the small round blender from Ranger to spread the paint and this seems to work really well, I have also used a paint brush. Dina sells a wonderful set of stiff brushes that comes as 4 brushes for around $10.00. I used the 3/4 inch brush to spread red paint on the side of a Valentines tag and I really like the look using the stiff brush. I haven't tried this heavy body paint with a gelli plate yet but am planning on trying that out tomorrow afternoon.
I sound like an advertisement for this paint but I really like the colors, the consistency, and the blendability that is packed into these 2 ounce tubes. I am hoping that they will last a long time since it takes so very little of this paint to do so much. I also used this to paint on a stamp and stamp on the same above mentioned Valentines tags. It worked out really well. One thing that I picked up from watching the demos is that when using this paint use a dry brush, don't wet your brush first and let your brush dry or use a different brush after cleaning the brush. There is no need to water this paint down at all. I take that back you need just the tiniest of spritzs on the painted stamp right before you stamp. The tiny spray adds a bit of moisture but does not make it a watercolor effect. These paints are not meant for watercoloring, they are meant to be used right out of the tube for the best results. If you want to extend the working time which is already quite long a person should add a little glazing medium instead of water. Because they are a heavy body paint the "open" or working time while they are still wet is quite long compared to Liquitex Basics or Distress Paint. Which means you can either use a heat gun to dry the paint or you can set the project aside and work on something else until the paint dries.
I can recommend these paints for the more artistic crafter. I am not sure how many card makers would want these paints if they had never used acrylic paints in their projects or cards before. There is a totally different feel and end result with these paints when compared to the regular crafters acrylic paint. I am really looking forward to the tube pen to be brought to market because using that with these heavy body paints would be like using a dimension paint with a better tip. The way the tip looks it can be used for writing which will be really fun because the writing will have dimension.
Well there you go, I like these paints a lot. I would recommend them to anyone who wants to try a heavy body paint.