Lightfastness and Quality Paint

Lightfastness and Quality Paint
By: Luke Galutia
Originally posted 2013-06-05
Galutia Gallery ( www.galutia.com )

LightFastness

If you are like me, you don’t always have a lot of money to spend on art products. I have been painting since 1989, and for most of my art career I have used the $1 paint from the craft stores. That all changed about two years ago when I discovered what lightfastness is.

Lightfastness is the rating of the permanence of a pigment. It is the amount of time that a pigment takes to fade. This is determined by the quality of pigment used, the medium of the paint such as acrylic, oil or watercolor, and the concentration of the pigment in the medium. The more higher quality paint will most generally use only one high quality pigment in their paint. This pigment is densely packed in a high quality medium such as an acrylic polymer. The higher quality paints also keep from color shifting which is the paint changing color as it dries. Usually lower quality paint darkens as it dries.

These are the lightfastness ratings:
ASTM I — Excellent Lightfastness
ASTM II — Very Good Lightfastness
ASTM III — Not Sufficiently Lightfast to be used in artists’ paints

Note that there are some pigments such as arizona crimson that have a lesser lightfast value even though it is in the professional level paint brands. this is due to the nature of the pigment which is used. it has a natural tendency to fade quicker then most other pigments. it is usually rated as ASTM II. Also Watercolor in general has a lower lightfast quality compared to oil and acrylic. This is due to the medium in which the pigment is bound. There are ways to work around this though, usually through quality watercolor paper which is museum grade and acid free, using UV protected glass for the paintings frame, and keeping out of direct sunlight.
UV light will significantly breakdown and degrade pigment in paint.

Once I discovered this I changed my mentality instantly. For me, when I create art, I am doing it to create a remembrance of who I am, my spiritual journey, and what I experience when I dream or meditate. The thought that, for years I had used such poor quality of paint which would fade quickly, was not very comforting to me. For years I refused to buy the more expensive paint as it thought I was all about the art company trying to make a buck off artist who lacked the money to pay for it. I was totally wrong. Now that I understand “why” it is so expensive it makes more sense to me. The reason why I am writing this is, I have take art class for years, and painted most of my life, and I either didn’t understand, or was totally ignorant of what lightfastness was. So I hope to enlighten people who are just beginning to paint, that yes there is a reason to get the good paint ~ even if it is just the student grade paint from a good company.


Good quality paint companies
Fortunately most of the paints out these days in the art store usually has good lightfast qualities even the “student paint”, which if you are starting out in painting - this is a really good option, until you are able to master the medium. Here are the top three paint companies that will get you started painting.

For acrylic paint here are some really good quality companies and the link to their product page:

http://www.winsornewton.com/
http://acrylics.winsornewton.com/en/

One of the major brands that I uses is winsor newton, so far I have only had the opportunity to use their galeria paint for acrylic. I hope someday (once I have the extra money) to buy their Artist Acrylic, Oil and Watercolor brand. The galeria brand is pretty decent it is a medium quality paint but has as great of lightfast qualities as their professional grade “Artist’s” line. The one thing that creates the difference between the grades is the specialized acrylic polymer they use for the Artist’s professional grade paint. The only thing that I think they really need to focus on is opalescent paints and metal colors such as silver and gold - which I use, especially a lot of the opalescent paint (pearl white) in almost all my paintings for special effects. The stuff is magick when you add glossy coat over it!



www.goldenpaints.com

The Golden Paint company is another really good high quality professional level paint. fortunately for me, they DO have opalescents, so I usually go for this brand when ever I need to paint something gold, silver, or pearl color like aura fields. I have not had a chance to use their standard colors, but the opalescent paints are pretty cool.


http://www.liquitex.com/

I have used this brand for glossy coat and some of their cheaper bottle paints for a long time. They offer four lines of paint. They are a common name in art products and are fairly trusted. they have some interesting mediums and varnishes and heavy body base paints.


I hope that this blog has been a good introduction to the concept of lightfastness and color shift. Hopefully it will help starting artist to avoid some mistakes early on that I wish someone had told me when I started. Keep creating great art!

- Luke Galutia
2013-06-05
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Luke Galutia has been in the fine arts since 1989, and has won awards for
his art. His artwork has been recognized as being cutting-edge Optical
Illusion Art, and is hosted as part of a permanent collection in the
Washington State Governor's Art Collection in the Olympia Capitol
Building.

Email: lgalutia@gmail.com
Website portfolio: www.galutia.com
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