About Liquitex Spray Paint

"Introducing Liquitex Professional Spray Paint, a stunning innovation developed for professional artists. Combining artist grade pigments with revolutionary water-based technology, Liquitex Professional Spray Paint offers color brilliance, lightfastness and durability in a unique low odor formulation."

At least that is said on the Liquitex website, and I urge you to go there to read about it and check out the many colors and applications, but I'll give you a short review of what I discovered while working with it, especially regarding its comparison to the solvent based sprays on the market. Liquitex isn't paying me anything, but hey guys if you're reading this, a sponsorship would be cool. :-)

The main difference is the health/safety factor. Painting with solvent based sprays such as Rustolium and Krylon is fine if you want to wear a mask to protect your lungs, and gloves to protect your skin as the paint will be absorbed through your skin to your blood stream. Even then, others watching you paint can be exposed to the same compounds. Painting indoors is impossible without some kind of air ventalation system. Forget about holding workshops with more than one or two students: The cloud of toxic particulates in the air is a reason for concern.

I wanted to teach this great method of painting to others, but I had to find a safer medium to work with. Thus, I found the new, safer, low odor water based acrylic Liquiex Professional Spray Paint.

With Liquitex being a spray paint, many of the methods and techniques that are used by traditional spacepainters can be applied. But there are a few things that are different that made me 'tweak' the technique a bit to get the desired results on canvas.

A big difference between the water-based acrylic Liquitex spray and its solvent-based counterpart is the "tackyness". Liquitex lacks the latex tackyness that the solvent spray has, so it is difficult to use the scratchboard and layer removal techniques spacepainters use.

Another difference is the ability to rewet the solvent based spray paint with a clear spray after it has dried. This makes the paint wet again so the artist can manipulate it. Not so with Liquitex. Once its dry, its dry.

The other benefits of spray such as texturing, misting, stenciling, and rapid surface coverage was the same, so I used my earlier experience as a painter and merged traditional brush and knife techniques with spray painting methods. The combination of the two techniques results in paintings that has exceptional color and depth... and some spiffy looking planets.

Liquitex spray paint is somewhat expensive. Expect to shell out about $12 per can at a local Michaels Art Supply store vrs the $4 or less traditional solvent based spray paints that you can find at Walmart and other paint suppliers. If you do shop at Michaels art stores, don't purchase all your stuff at once. Their receipts usually have 40% off coupons on it that you can use later so spread your shopping to save money.