Craft Test Dummies

Acrylic Paint by Eco Green Crafts

I  wrote about Eco Green Crafts and it’s fabulous founder, Julie Andrus during my coverage of CHA Winter for CraftCritique, and I was very excited to get these acrylic paints out and play a little! If Eco Green Crafts is a new company for you, you are about to be pleasantly surprised: it’s a company that makes environmentally- and human- friendly craft products with the mission of crafting a healthier world!

I opened them out and kind of drizzled them onto my watercolor paper. They are a little more viscous than, say, toothpaste- they dripped out of the container, but still maintained a thick bead.  Next- a deep breath. Er, sniff. The smell was very mild and unobtrusive, and in a few minutes I didn’t even notice it at all anymore.

I used a paintbrush to spread around the paint and check out the coverage on the slightly-nubby water color surface. You can see my results here:

Coverage was excellent on white paper.

I tested 2 regular colors of acrylics, black and white, and three colors of metallics- gold, copper, and silver green. I have to tell you that I was VERY entranced by this silvery-sage-green-patina color! They were all smooth and creamy, and leveled off a little, making the brush strokes fairly unnoticeable.

I tried some of these luscious metalllics on black cardstock, as well:

Gold and silvery metallic paint on black cardstock.

Now, often you can expect good pigment coverage on white paper, but no so on black. From the photo above, you can see that the Eco Green Crafts paint left brushstrokes in the metallic paint, but it covered the black paper perfectly. And the shimmer is great.

Next, I have a quick try on a coated cardstock with a glossy paper. This paint is labeled for porous surfaces, but I thought I’d try it out. I used just a little black and gold:

Paint on glossy cardstock

So here’s where it got interesting. The black acrylic has a flat finish, which makes a good contrast against the glossy paper. Awesome contrast! Remembering what Julia Andrus told me, I recalled that this paint has a resin IN the paint, and a quick buff with change the finish….so I painted a piece of water color paper, let it dry, and buffed:

Right side was buffed with a cotton cloth to bring up the sheen.

You can see how the shine came up, and all it took was a little buffing with an old tee-shirt. I cannot tell you how impressed I am with this aspect of Eco Green Crafts paint! It completely eliminates a step of having to add an extra coat to create a shine.

So, the with some of the “technical” aspects of my review out of the way, I just played with the paint, blending and making textures on the surface. This is how it turned out:

Which I then cut up into ATC-sized rectangles, and made into these:

So there it is. A paint that is low/no VOC, low impact to the environment, AND delivers as a GREAT craft product. I encourage you to visit their website and to read Julia’s story- it’s inspiring- and try out these paints for yourself. I can’t wait to get my hands on some additional colors!

Popularity: 4% [?]