Artists’ Paints

ARCHIVAL OILS FROM CHROMA

What is your attitude to technology? Archival is the only oil paint using modified polymer technology to produce a flexible oil paint. Chroma’s idea was long-term protection from the movement in canvases which causes brittle old paintings to crack.

Modified polymers have been in use since the 1930s, and since the 1960s have been an essential part of acrylic technology, allowing acrylic paintings to stretch and contract as the canvas moves. The Rohm & Haas Company, the acknowledged leader in acrylic technology, believes that permanently flexible acrylic paintings will age better and require less conservation than traditional oils.

Chroma decided to borrow this technology to make more durable oil paint, which they have been making since 1990. Of the 300 available polymer modifiers they found two that worked with linseed oil. Along with the flexible paint, they pioneered healthier odourless mediums, which became popular as artists became aware of health risks. tested Many alongside Archival in 1990 were within a 12 month period – by bending gently over a mandrel. The colour tested was Titanium White. The tests were carried out by the Australian Government Analytical Testing Laboratories in Sydney. All samples cracked except the Archival Oils. Paintings done in 1990 using Archival Oils remain as flexible today as they were in 1990.

The ‘Classical Rules’ of oil painting are described at length in Max Doerner’s book ‘Materials of the Artist’. Developed over hundreds of years, these rules still apply to traditional oil paints which have not sought to use modern technology.

According to the Classical Rules of Oil Painting, two basic principles are essential in oil painting:

1. In a layered painting, essentially where oil paint of any thickness is used, a period of six months curing time is required between layers. This helps to reduce the danger of cracking by ensuring that each layer is cured, with maximum access to oxygen, before being covered over by the next layer.

2. The ‘Fat over Lean Principle’ means basically that turps may be used with the paint for layering in, for the first layer; and that every subsequent layer should have more oil or oily medium added to the paint. This theoretically imparts more flexibility to the top layers as a protection against cracking.

These rules no longer apply when you use Archival Oils.

It is the artists who have used Archival since 1990 who have proved that flexibility is even more important for oils in the early stages than for acrylics.

Theoretically, over extended periods of time, Archival Oil paintings should age better than traditional oils, but it is in the short term, in the first few months of a painting’s life, that the advantage of flexibility has become very clear: The surface layer of an Archival painting stretches to accommodate movement below