Acrylic Flow Improver

2003-9-25

Acrylic paints are popular for painting models because they are primarily water based. There are times when thinning with water alone, even distilled or de-mineralised water, just doesn't give the properties required.






This is when a drop of flow improver can help!

Flow improver contains a concentrated solution of wetting agent which drastically reduces the surface tension of water and extends drying time, making fine lines easy to paint for example. Also, unlike thinning with ordinary water, flow improver will give negligible loss of colour strength.

Note: Flow improver is certainly not an essential material to own, in most cases thinning acrylics with water works just fine. However, an experienced painter may discover a limitation in the performance of acrylic paint. That's the time to consider using flow improver.

Use: follow instructions on the bottle carefully since flow improvers are concentrated solutions of solvents.

Usually, one or two parts should be added to twenty parts of water or acrylic medium before mixing with colour.