Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

I paint with acrylics, and prefer those that have a creamy smooth texture for blending. Conventional acrylics work fine for most of my landscapes and wildlife studies, and I really like their fast drying. However, portraits are something else entirely, and blending colors and shades on the painting can be really hard with most brands. I'm thrilled with the Golden Open colors. They are much easier to blend and much more predictable than simply adding retarder to slow drying of other brands. The challenge is restraining myself from not recoating too soon, because the paints will lift if they aren't thoroughly cured. One solution was to do my underpainting with quick drying acrylics, and then topcoat with Golden Open where I wanted it. I also tried blending Golden Open with my other favorite acrylics (Golden, Grumbacher, Winsor Newton, Liquitex) to see how that worked. It worked quite well. The color matches were quite compatible where needed (skin tones) and I found that I could adjust the drying time by the mix. I'm looking forward to more experience with these paints.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

Having painted with acrylics for over two decades I cannot being to express my excitement when first reading of this new product. I envisioned juicy luscious paint with enough open time which spreads like butter over the canvas giving way to produce sfumato-like transitions of color and tone.On the palette left uncovered and overnight, the globs and mixtures were still moist and usable. On the surface is an entirely different matter.While they do not exactly dry to the touch quickly as conventional acrylics,they begin to tack almost immediately which makes working new paint into existing color almost impossible. The underlying colors began to lift off rather than blend into the newly applied pigment. Misting the surface prior to any new applications didn't improve the situation.
The paints do have a creamy consistency which move easily with little or no use for mediums.As for myself working with this product in a direct method was far from the joy of painting. Covering power and body are not this products strengths.In an indirect method these paints performed closer to my expectations.
While my overall experience with this product was more agony than ecstasy,I may need to experiment further. And like with conventional acrylics turn its disadvantages into advantages.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

I have never used Golden acrylics, but i tried the Open introductory set, wanting more workable painting time since I am used to painting in oils. The Alizarin Crimson hue is terrible, it mixes with ultramarine to make a disgusting brown instead of a vibrant purple. The paint feels like pushing around plastic and any peaks "settle", kind of like Elmers glue. Most of the colors are also VERY transparent - forget covering up anything with yellow.
I would suggest trying a buttery creamy paint like Sennelier or Atelier instead of this plasticy paint.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

This has been a struggle. It feels like I am moving plastic around. May be I need more time to fall in love with open acrylics. In away regular acrylics are more honest, they do what they suppose to do.
The open acrylic does not bland the way it is advertised. It's flexibility and ability to bland does not resemble oil paint.
May be just stick with oil for oil and acrylics for acrylics and dont try make acrylics to be "oil". If my experinec changes I will write about it.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

I bought the traditional and modern color sets to try out open acrylics. The consistancy, color intensity and ease of use are what I expected from Golden - great. I am an experienced acrylic painter wanting to learn oil techniques without dealing with oil paint fumes so I'm trying water-based oils and the Golden open acrylics. I haven't quite got the knack of working with paints that don't dry quickly but thus far I'm finding the open acrylics much easier to use and less frustrating than the water-based oils, although I don't think I picked a quality brand of oil paint so I may be comparing apples to oranges. Still, all things being equal, the advantage of paint being dry to the touch in a day vs several days not to mention being able to varnish and/or frame paintings in a month vs six months seems to give Golden the advantage over water-based oils.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

Wow!!! These are really a step up for acrylic paints.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

If you are thinking of trying these, buy a couple tubes as I did, you wont be dissapointed. I predict these are going to be very popular! I've only been using this product for a week but I've tried many different kinds of oil & acrylic paint. All the reviews say the same thing, because it's true, these Golden Open Acrylics are absolutely awesome!

1. Gives you plenty of time before it dries. I left & came back 2 hours later to find my paints still wet & ready to work with.
2. As label says, can be used & combined with regular Golden Acrylics & vary drying time.
3. Very Informative Product Label front & back tells you EVERYTHING including matte to gloss levels along with others.
4. Fair Price, well worth it.
5. Color Selection is great. They didn't limit these to a small test of colors first. You got all the colors you need.

I'm definitely going to buy more. I'm sticking with Golden for my acrylics.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

These acrylics dried really slowly and were the best acrylics I have worked with so far. They are really workable when mixed with a little bit of water. The colors were mixable and my paintings looked great when they dried.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

Golden products never desappoint me. It's a brand I always trust for its quality.

Comments about Golden Open Acrylic Sets:

If you are working in acrylics, Golden is the company to go with. It just does not get any better than this employee-owned company. I was initially skeptical about how long these paints would stay open but after having tried them, I can say that they are everything that they've been advertised to be. As has been noted in a previous review, opacity is not a problem as long as you get colors that are naturally opaque. Some pigments are more naturally transparent and some are more naturally opaque. A simple look at Golden's pigment ID chart at their web site will show you which colors are more opaque.

One of the things I like best about this line is that intermixing with regular acrylic brands and mediums can give you a large range of drying times. I've found that using Open medium with regular acrylics can also significantly extend their drying time as well.

If you are someone like me who's come to acrylics from an oil painting background, you really owe it to yourself to try these great paints out.