Artist Shane Record tests the Daler Rowney System 3 Heavy Body Acrylics for his thick impasto painting technique.
I paint in my gallery in full public view, and am generally under constant pressure to produce paintings and sell them, which very neatly lent itself to an obvious challenge: could I produce a piece of work with these paints, for the review, that would be as professional and saleable as any other in my gallery?
Top features:
- Suitable for professional use
- Value for money
- Versatile for use with brush and knife
- Thick buttery texture
The colours
My first thoughts were about the colour range.
Ordinarily I paint with a handful of strong, single pigment paints. My concern with the Daler-Rowney paints was that, although there are 34 colours in the range, I would have difficulty achieving colour depth and sensitivity with a student-grade paint.
With this in mind, and to really put the new range to the test, I purposely chose a subject with rich tones and a variety of textures, reflectiveness and transparency.
Putting Sysem 3 acrylics to the test
The initial drawing
Mixing the colours
Painting is, for me, often a process of experimentation, and I soon found myself mixing the background colours with a palette knife. This was unexpected; but the thicker, buttery consistency of the range made this possible.
The use of the knife allowed a much faster covering of the canvas – a knife can mix and apply large amounts of paint quickly.
I was then able to apply the first coat of paint with both a palette knife and a brush depending on the area and level of detail.
This demonstrated the versatility of the paint in being able to play with its texture on the canvas both with a brush and a knife.
Transparency
Here I was using one of the more transparent colours, and the paint was applied thinly.
Once the first coat was on the canvas and had dried (I had to be careful to make sure the knife was wiped after each use because of the fast drying time), I dispensed with the knife other than for mixing, and the paint loaded well on to the brushes.
I noticed that each tube has a star rating for permanence of colour and an indicator of its opacity, with (S) for semi opaque; (T) for transparent and (O) for opaque.
Depth of colour can be built up with layers of paint
Using one of the more transparent colours, I began to build depth of colour. Ironically, this allayed any concerns I had had about the colour quality because I could see that I was able to achieve fabulous richness of colour by applying further coats.
Effects such as transparency and reflections can be obtained with sensitive use of the paint.
The finished painting
Final thoughts
This paint is obviously suitable for professional use, but has the advantage of student level prices.
One last thing I was able to note was that when necessary, the paints could be thinned right down for effective final washes over the painting.
So, to summarise, the paints are versatile, can be applied in different ways to build colour and can be used sensitively to reflect different tones and textures.
For students they are an inexpensive exploration of more versatile professional paints.
As to my initial question of whether my end result is professional and saleable – well, perhaps you can answer that for yourself!
Where to buy
Daler-Rowney System 3 Acrylics can be purchased from Jackson's Art Supplies by clicking here and from art shops and other online retailers.
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