Considering Paints

AT CHROMA, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PAINT

The Chroma company was founded in 1965 by Jim Cobb, a former art teacher. At that time, the Australian school system was introducing an excellent and well funded art programme. School acrylics were promptly adopted as the basic paint used in Australian classrooms.

By the ’70s, the company was making acrylic artists’ paints which were very fashionable at that time … and almost mandatory for producing the ‘Hard Edge’ paintings of the period. Oil paints had become an artifact from the past.

By the ’80s, fashions changed again – this time towards more ‘painterly’ styles – and artists’ acrylics went into struggle mode. Chroma produced a thicker impasto artists’ acrylic in 1982, but more and more artists were rediscovering oil paints; while those who stayed with acrylics had to become more painterly as well.

Acrylics were starting to become a widely used ‘traditional’ type of paint by this time and amateur use increased for reasons like easy clean up; while some oil painters were beginning to worry about their health because of the toxic fumes given off by their mediums and solvents.

In 1990, Chroma launched its most innovative product to date: Archival Oils. This medium employed polymer modifier technology to prevent paintings from becoming brittle with age, together with a system of mediums based on alkyd resins made up with relatively non-toxic odourless solvents.

Archival Oils were not, at this time, as commercially successful as they should have been – they became a niché product until 2000 when they reemerged with more fanfare after many years spent in proving the obvious: Technology, when used correctly, does benefit consumers. Artists who had kept on using Archival Oils were discovering new freedoms of technique which hinged upon the paints’ flexibility.

In 2004, Chroma developed a new hyper gouache called Absolute Matte. Most artists have to discover the paint that suits them … and this paint has particular potential for anyone interested in works on paper, be they gouache, watercolour