We are a tiny Artist and Chemist owned company, specializing in handmade supplies and materials for the traveling artist. Everything we create is held to the highest possible quality standards and made with obsessive attention to detail. We offer Artisanal Handmade Watercolors, Travel Watercolor Palettes, Hand-Carved Paintbrushes, Digital Paintable Projects, carefully curated supplies, and lots of information on our Blog.
Basics Acrylic
Basics is for all creatives. For all budgets. It’s perfect for all painting techniques including underpainting and sketching. This medium viscosity paint is made with lightfast, artist-quality pigments in an expanded choice of 72 colors.
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COLORS
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Cadmium Yellow Light Hue
Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue
Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue
Vivid Red Orange
Cadmium Orange Hue
Cadmium Red Light Hue
Cadmium Red Medium Hue
Cadmium Red Deep Hue
Alizarin Crimson Hue Permanent
Light Blue Violet
Prussian Blue Hue
Cobalt Blue Hue
Cerulean Blue Hue
Light Blue Permanent
Bright Aqua Green
Hooker’s Green Hue Permanent
Green Deep Permanent
Light Green Permanent
Light Olive Green
Brilliant Yellow Green
Naples Yellow Hue
Transparent Mixing White
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This product has been evaluated by a toxicologist and labelled for acute and chronic health hazards in accordance with the labelling of Hazardous Art Materials Regulation and Federal Regulation 16 CFR 1500.14 of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. This product conforms to ASTM D-4236 Standard Practice for Labelling Art Materials for Chronic Adverse health effects. This product has been certified by ACMI (Artists Craft Material Institute, Inc.) to carry the AP (Approved Product) Seal, meaning the product bears no chronic or acute human hazards.
770Light Blue Permanent
An opaque light blue color made with a mix of phthalocyanine pigments and titanium white
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Anything but Basic
Basics Acrylics are formatted with the same lightfast, fine art pigments we use in our professional range, but just a lighter load.
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24 new Basics Colors
Quality lightfast pigments. Great if you’re on a budget – the everyday acrylic.
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Mix Up Your Color
What can you do with Basics acrylics? The answer: pretty much everything.
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QUALITY
FINE ART PIGMENTS
ECONOMICAL
SAFETY
SURFACES
ARCHIVAL
QUALITY
Basics gives you the perfect balance of quality and economy. Made for all artists, Basics acrylics are formulated with the exacting Liquitex standard. Which means they’re made with the same lightfast, fine art pigments we use in our professional range, but just a lighter load. Choose from a range of sizes:
4oz (118ml) in 72 colors
8.45oz (250ml) in 36 colors
14oz (400ml) in 30 colors
32oz (946ml) in 22 colors
0.34oz & 2.54oz in sets only
FINE ART PIGMENTS
All Liquitex paints use the highest quality pigments and go through the same rigorous manufacturing process. The only difference is that with Basics we use a lower concentration of pigment than our professional paints. For Basics, fine art pigments are selected and milled using the latest basket bead-mill technology, in the same way as Soft and Heavy Body Acrylics. Pigments are ground with tiny reinforced ceramic beads to give fine dispersion, great color development, strength and brightness, before being added to the acrylic emulsion.
ECONOMICAL
Push your budget harder with Basics. Use on their own or combine together with professional materials – if they’re made by Liquitex, they’re all intermixable. Perfect for everyday use, for sketching out preliminary ideas, for underpainting before laying down your final paint application and for covering large areas.
SAFETY
Basics acrylics are safe for you to use. All colors are independently tested by the Art and Creative Materials Institute at Duke University, and hold the Approved Product (AP) safety seal. This means they are certified to contain no materials in sufficient quantities to be toxic or harmful to humans or to cause health problems, making them ideal for studio and educational use.
SURFACES
If your paint sticks to it, you can use it. Use Basics on:
- canvas
- paper & board
- wood & masonry
- metal
- styrofoam
- stone & ceramics
- textiles
ARCHIVAL
Your work has a life beyond you. As with all Liquitex paints, the pigments in Basics acrylic have passed extensive tests for lightfastness. The advanced acrylic formula is highly flexible, durable, non-yellowing and UV-resistant. Your work will have the greatest archival permanence possible, withstanding color shifting or fading to stay vibrant and true.
Basics to professional
Progressing
As your budget expands, or your practice evolves, you may want to start exploring new techniques. Experiment with your materials or pick up one of our ready-made Basics techniques kits, which gives you all the tools you need, plus a step-by-step guide. And as your budget expands, or you get more serious, you may want to start exploring the more specialist lines of Liquitex Professional. Higher pigment loads give stronger colors, a wider range of mediums let you create new effects. And you can try different acrylic paint textures and formats – from inks to fine art spray paint.
Good pigment load
High pigment load
Good range of colors
Wide range of colors
One consistancy of paint (medium viscosity)
Choice of paint viscosities and formats
Same pricing for all colors of the same size
Different series pricing depending on pigments
Next Re-Stock: Friday, November 10th, 2023 – Time: We’re LIVE!
All stocking details are published in our Newsletter – subscribe here
Single Pigment Colors Without Fillers:
Every single one of our Artisanal Handmade Watercolors contains just one pigment – and no fillers.
Not using fillers is a significant detail. Fillers are standard practice in the paint industry as they keep cost down and are often not noticed by consumers. However, this effects pigment load – and how often you need to purchase new colors.
When we say our colors have a maximum pigment load – we mean it.
Offering single pigment colors means no color mixing surprises for you. The greater the number of different pigments involved in a pan of watercolor, the less predictably and less cleanly it will mix with other colors. Every pigment displays unique handling characteristics, which become less discernable when masked by additional pigments. We leave mixing decisions up to you, which places the creative control where we believe it belongs: in your hands.
When we say our colors are handmade. we mean it.
Every batch of artisanal watercolors we create is made by hand using muller and slab, just like you see here. Using muller and slab creates a different physical environment than mixers, rollers, etc. This ensures every pigment particle is coated and suspended in our carefully prepared proprietary binder. This method also allows us to react to the pigment on our slab and make necessary adjustments. Natural pigments are dynamic, and carry different compositions and ratios of accessory minerals from batch to batch, depending on the precise location and depth from which a particular sample has been retrieved.
