Category: Crafts/Hobbies Publisher: Watson-Guptill/ Random House
ISBN-10: 0823099261
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 192
Copyright: July 14, 2009
ISBN-13: 9780823099269
Rheni Tauchid’s bestselling The New Acrylics is an invaluable overview of modern acrylic paints. Her follow-up, New Acrylics Essential Sourcebook, is an in-depth, must-have resource for today’s acrylic artist. By guiding you to a higher level of adeptness and fluidity in the handling of your materials, it brings you closer to true mastery of the medium.
Moving beyond a focus on the technical properties of acrylic paints, this new book opens your mind and eyes to the artistic possibilities that are uniquely suited to the medium. Once you become familiar with what acrylic paint is, you are ready to explore what it can become. Focusing on specific technical and application processes, this invaluable handbook demonstrates the many techniques used to produce the varied effects and painting styles that you can achieve with this most versatile of all painting media.
Clearly and beautifully illustrated with photographs of the techniques and effects, as well as stunning work by the author and other leading acrylic artists, this book expands the breadth of your potential as an artist by giving you a deeper understanding of the essence of your medium.
The New Acrylics Essential Sourcebook has been designed as a sequel to The New Acrylics. This installment goes further into the subject of working with modern acrylic paints, exploring technology and technique. Rather than being a recipe book to producing works limited by style or composition, this book will provide valuable resources for artists looking to improve their process and materials knowledge vocabulary. This is a frame of reference that will appeal and be useful to professional artists, but projects information in a clear and comprehensive manner that will make sense to beginners as well. Complex in its diversity and scope, is a serviceable guidebook to gaining mastery of the acrylic medium.
As with its predecessor, this book presents an objective springboard for techniques without straying into dictating style or theme. It explores detailed working qualities of the various paint formats, pigments and mediums in a ways that can be applied to a variety of personal styles.
There is great emphasis on the components of the acrylic paint family, from their basic chemistry to new developments. Although there are some more radical application suggestions, the primary focus of the book leans towards materials detail with an emphasis on defining and expanding acrylic application techniques. There is a marked emphasis on responsible materials use in the studio and the classroom, providing tips on how to remain environmentally conscious while working with these materials. A conversation with conservation scientists also provides a look on the future of acrylics, and how to protect and maintain your paintings.
The New Acrylics Essential Sourcebook is a sophisticated, visually lush resource intended to inspire and inform in equal measure.
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Reviews for "The New Acrylics Essential Sourcebook"
Reviewed by Don Baker
3/1/2010
I've gotten to page 154 and I love this book. It was just what I needed for the technical processes of using acrylics. I had previously used acrylics a few times on mouse pads and tee shirts, and am working (slowly) on a new approach to building and decorating electric guitars. Finding digital printing on adhesive vinyl film too expensive, with questionable impact on guitar value and sound, I go interested in airbrushing with non-solvent paints, i.e., water-based acrylics.
I've found a few things not covered in this book that might be considered for future editions:
1) Warping masonite - Ordinary masonite(not mentioned explicitly on pp 58-59) warps badly on the application of gesso. For that matter, so does canvas on cardboard on the application of very wet acrylics. I found that sealing masonite with shellac first cuts down on warping significantly. But if it's in the book, I missed the part that discusses shellac and acrylic.
2) The book does not mention interactions with other common materials, like denatured alcohol (solvent for shellac), latex paint (whiter and more flexible than gesso), fabric paints (like Tulip and Paseo Setacolor), water-based polyurethanes, dilute ammonia (good for cleaning acrylics out of brushes), methanol
3) There is no discussion about water-based acrylic lacquers used on guitars (like Stewart-McDonald Colortone), or the fact that they are apparently waterproof. They are said to "burn-in" (redissolve) between layers, to be hard on curing, and will melt under the heat of buffing. This would seem to be a possible hard topcoat for acrylic paintings. Supposedly the acrylic resin beads melt together in the non-water co-solvent as the water evaporates, then consolidate as the co-solvent evaporates at a much slower rate. That might seem to preclude the water leaving pores as it evaporates, since the co-solvent would tend to fill them.
4) I don't recall using isopropyl alcohol, but unlike the comments of benign reactions using it on p138, denatured alcohol seems to make admittedly inexpensive acrylics (Walmart craft paints, and even Tulip fabric paint) clump up enough to make airbrush spraying problematic, and even result in curdling. It deserves a warning.
5) For what it is worth, the old formulation of Formula 409, with propylene glycol n-butyl ether, is an aggressive solvent and thinner for acrylics. A bit caustic for humans, though, which may be why it is no longer available. And be sure to clean ammonia (glass cleaner or stronger) off brass airbrush parts directly after use - it is corrosive to brass.
6) The discussion of matte versus glossy visual depth is spot on. Back in photography class, the grainless 5x7 B&W contact prints others made on glossy paper looked as if one could walk into them. But color also works that way, I think because of the difference in focal points inside our eyes. Or possibly hardwiring in our brains. Blue looks much farther away than red. The difference in refraction between air and thick polished plexiglas also provides an illusion of depth.
Otherwise, it's a great book and I'm glad that I found it.
