A few years back, Winsor & Newton ran a few competitions on their Twitter page, where Twitter users could answer certain questions to be in with a chance to win some of Winsor & Newton’s artist materials. I was lucky enough to win one of their Artists’ Acrylic Painting Sets, which included 9 tubes of paint (8 20ml tubes of various colours and a 60ml tube of Titanium White), a 60ml tube of Gloss Gel and two Galeria acrylic brushes. I also ordered four extra tubes with another online order I was making, since the set didn’t include a magenta, a bright orangey red or a phthalo blue.
Here is my colour chart for my Winsor & Newton Artists’ Acrylics:
These are a heavy-bodied acrylic with that thick, buttery texture you expect from artist grade acrylics. Their pigment load is high and they mix perfectly well with other brands of acrylics. When used thickly they have a nice glossy finish, though it’s more of a semi-gloss when they are thinned with water a bit. When used straight out of the tube, their texture means they retain brush strokes, allowing for some nice textured effects. They also hold their shape when applied with a palette knife. One of the things I really like about the Winsor & Newton Artists’ acrylics is that there is very little colour shift between the wet paint and the dry paint. They are advertised as having no colour shift, which isn’t entirely true for some colours, but on the whole, it is a lot easier to match a mixture of paint on your palette to a colour already on your canvas.
Winsor & Newton Artists’ acrylics are not cheap. Starting at $10.20 for a Series 1 60ml tube, they’re a bit dearer than Golden Heavy Body and Sennelier acrylics in similar tube sizes, and a lot dearer than M Graham, Matisse or Atelier Interactive acrylics. As much as I love them, I probably wouldn’t buy them again due to this price difference, unless the retailer had them discounted.
Here are some pansies I painted with the Winsor & Newton Artists’ acrylics on a canvas pad.
Winsor & Newton acrylics are highly pigmented and have a gorgeous buttery consistency, but this isn’t really enough to justify the higher price compared to other heavy body acrylics. Still, the reduced colour shift makes them worth at least trying, so I’d recommend buying some if you can find them on sale as they are wonderful to work with.
artdragon86 