You may have noticed some changes happening in the store. Particularly in our acrylic paint section.
Over the last year, we took advantage of the opportunity to step back and examine options within the store.
If you’ve been in the store recently, you may have noticed the complete revamp of the acrylic paint section.
Briefly, we have stopped carrying Liquitex paint (both Basics and Heavy Body) and brought in Amsterdam and even more Golden acrylics.
We are still carrying some of the Liquitex mediums and varnishes.
Why the change
There are a variety of reasons we switched to Amsterdam and expanded to all of the Goldens. It primarily comes down to the best value for your money.
Liquitex offers a great pigment at a decent price point, quality mediums, and a well-known name. However, there is minimal difference across the product lines, no smaller quantities of Basics, and offer no brand support for retailers.
Amsterdam also has great pigments but at a great price point (less than the Basics they replaced), come in smaller quantities for those looking for different size options, and in a variety of sets. We also liked the smooth laydown when painting, satin finish when dry, and the great opacity of their paint. They’re not as well-known a brand, but we have only heard good things about them – from our personal experience, reviews we’ve read, and from customer feedback we’ve received.
We also brought in the Amsterdam Acrylic Inks to widen the available options.
Kristen extensively tested out the different paints side-by-side and shared her results with the rest of us.
Golden has a veritable laundry list of reasons we brought in more of their paint. They’re packed with high-quality pigments that are consistent across all of their lines, which are distinctly different from each other to suit different purposes (like their Open line, which is slower drying). They offer multiple mediums for changing how the paint behaves. We love their displays and beautiful packaging – with real paint samples directly on the tubes (no guessing about how they will look when dry).
As a company, we love working with Golden. We have direct communication with them whenever an issue or question arises. Golden is also Employee-owned and we love supporting them. Finally, Sam Golden (the founder) was part of the team that invented acrylics at their original store “Boncour Artist Colors” which he co-owned with his uncle Leonard Boncour.
Always Testing
We are always testing, researching, and tweaking what we carry here at the Art Supply house. We try to focus on value for you – to provide you with the best quality materials at the most reasonable price possible.
Products are tested before we bring them in for sale – so that we can understand how they work and so that we know what not to carry. We compare products side-by-side with their competitors to see how they perform and what is the best available option.
To the Future!
That testing process never ends. When we find something new, we will switch if it’s a better option for you. We don’t see that happening any time soon, with the Amsterdam and Golden lines. We’re excited to be working with them even more as we head into the future!