Crafts Unleashed

When my children were little, I didn’t care about the quality of the paint or how it would hold up under various conditions or over time. But when I became interested in becoming a full-time artist, all that changed and I began to see the difference in archival quality paints and hobby/craft paints.

Studio 71 Acrylic Paints

I would have to say Studio 71 Acrylic Paints fall in the craft paints category. (It’s important to know because creating collectible art requires a different type of paint.) When you’re creating art for the pure fun of the project or to master new skills, Studio 71 Acrylic Paints is the perfect choice.

When I first received my set of 24 tubes, I felt like someone had just gifted me with a wonderful present. The set comes in a rich burgundy colored box with each tube nicely displayed side-by-side. The paints come in plastic tubes with plastic lids—which I must admit that I prefer as the metal tubes with plastic lids always end up with broken lids and dried up paint.

This won't happen with Studio 71 paint tubes.

The paints are easy to use, blend together nicely, wash off with soap and water, and provide great coverage—though I did discover that some colors require two to three coats to reach the desired depth of color presented in the tube while others only required one coat. And that, too, is not a bad thing if those are the colors you’d like to appear more translucent.

A little paint goes a long way.

To test the paint, I applied a small drop of paint and created a block of color. Notice how rich the color appears? Very nice coverage, indeed.

Some paints are more transparent than others.

Then I  applied a dab of yellow. This is the same yellow I’ll use in an upcoming project—which didn’t provide as solid of a color as I hoped. However, on a nice white sheet of paper, two coats seem to cover quite nicely, as you can see above.

But the real test came when I took a small drop of paint and mixed it with water. I paint a lot with water/acrylic mixtures so it’s important for the paint to hold up under such stress. “Would the color hold up? Would it still look vibrant?” I wondered.

Adding water create watercolor paint.

The answer was a surprising, “YES!” Not only did the color hold up but a small drop went a long way! That’s great news, and in my opinion, truly shows the paints’ versatility. It even works very nicely as watercolor paints.

Get creative…

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