Dear Friends,

We are grateful for your business and support during this unusual time. In order to do our best to protect our community and practice social distancing, we’re modifying our usual operations until it is safe to resume regular work.

While the doors to the Kroma workshop will be closed beginning today, March 18th, we will continue to ship orders daily. You may still place orders through our web store and submit purchase orders through email. We will respond quickly to ensure you receive orders in the usual 2-4 business days within Canada, 4-6 throughout USA. 

Kevin is isolating between his home and our Mergatroid workshop, where our pigment is milled. I am isolating between my home and the Kroma workshop on Granville Island where our paint is made and sold. We are both able to safely walk to work. The rest of the Kroma crew will be at home and in close communication. 

To our dear community, stay safe, stay well. Stay in touch. Call me at the shop! Love you all!

Yours,

Jessica

This year Kroma will be open by chance or by appointment from December 26 - January 3 and will resume regular business hours on Monday, January 4th, 2016. To arrange a visit to the shop during the holiday, please email Kevin or Jessica at info@kromaacrylics.com

We are pleased to announce our new 2015 batch of Vancouver Grey. For the month of November all orders placed on the web receive one free 60ml tube of Vancouver Grey. This includes orders which select in store pickup.

Each time we grind a different colour we rinse out the mill and save the pigment residue. Over the year this residue accumulates into a beautiful sludge made up of layers of different colours. When enough has accumulated to make a batch we put it through the mill again and blend it all together to make Vancouver Grey. If you looked at this grey through a microscope you would see all kinds of brightly coloured pigment particles.  

Cobalt Teal is so undeniably beautiful! And it is now available in store and online.

This is genuine Cobalt Teal- an inorganic, synthetic, mixed metal oxide formed by the calcination of cobalt oxide and aluminum oxide. It is one of the most precious, and therefore expensive pigments available to artists. It is often imitated by mixing less expensive pigments (such as ultramarine, however never successfully as an exact match of the genuine hue as it has especially unique characteristics). It was first discovered by Thenard in France in 1802, and introduced as an artist’s colour in the 1820s.

Cobalt Teal has a greenish-blue hue and is an extremely opaque pigment with a very light mass tone (one of the lightest for blue pigments without the addition of white). Its opacity and light value give it a unique glowing mass tone, similar to the dayglow type effect of cadmium orange. It has average tinting strength similar to its relatives, cobalt blue pure and cerulean blue. Cobalt Teal has excellent lightfastness and weather fastness, making it suitable for outdoor applications.

We are so happy to include Nickel Azo Yellow into the Kroma colour palette. This was a bit of a long time coming, but is the first of a stream of new pigments and products we hope to unroll this year. We hope you enjoy!

Nickel Azo Yellow is an azo/nickel complex organic pigment which has a dull, brownish-yellow mass tone with a clean greenish undertone. It is very translucent with strong tinting power and excellent lightfastness. Because of its tinting power and translucency, it is very useful for glazing techniques and watercolour style washes.

We were recently asked to custom formulate a very special blue screen paint for a production that is currently in town. We had so much fun! Here are some action shots from our production...

Ranch: The Alan Wood Ranch Project, a film by Steve DeNure and Chris Lowry (1985, 25 min.)

Recently while brainstorming for a project on Granville Island we were reminded of Alan Wood's Ranch Project from the 80s - and then found this clip from an equally special film that Chris Lowry and Steve DeNure made about it in 1985 that is a work of art in itself. The Alan Wood Ranch Project is an art installation on 320 acres of land in the foothills of the rocky mountains. Each piece of wood is wrapped in artist's canvas and painted with Kroma paint using a special painting machine.

We are posting this excerpt from the film with permission from Chris Lowry. More about Chris Lowry here: Ecotone Productions

Part of today's day was spent making Acrylic Black Gesso - an acrylic primer used to cover canvas or board in preparation for painting in acrylic or oil. Black gesso is used instead of white gesso when the painter is looking to work on a surface without the cool, bright glow of a traditional white background. 

titanium white ~ raw titanium ~ cadmium light yellow ~ cadmium medium yellow ~ cadmium orange ~ cadmium medium red ~ cadmium dark red ~ cerulean blue ~ cobalt blue ~ payne's grey

A traditional colour mixing palette composed of pigments that artist’s have been using throughout history. This set includes primary colours in both warm and cool shades, with an emphasis on opaque cadmium and cobalt pigments. This set is ideal for those desiring a more ‘natural’ colour palette, lending to portraiture, landscape and still life paintings.

available in 60ml, 150ml and 250ml tubes

Here is how to make Turquoise:

Turquoise, in painting terms, is the infinite relationship between green and blue. It is defined as a greenish-blue or a sky blue colour. Given the vast spectrum of green and blue pigments that are available to us as artists, the exploration of mixing them in combinations is endless. We have provided samples below of blending turquoise as a wash (paint diluted with water) and with Titanium White.

Turquoise Washes:

1.  Cobalt Blue with Phthalo Green
2.  Cerulean Blue with Phthalo Green
3.  Sap Green with Phthalo Blue
4.  Cerulean Blue with Raw Titanium and Phthalo Green
5.  Benzi Burnt Orange with Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green
6.  Phthalo Green and Phthalo Blue
7.  Cobalt Blue with Raw Titanium and Phthalo Green
8.  Ultramarine Blue with Phthalo Green
9.  Alizarin Crimson Hue with Phthalo Green
10.  Cobalt Blue with Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green
11.  Cobalt Blue with Phthalo Green
12.  Phthalo Blue with Phthalo Green

Turquoise Blends with Titanium White: 

1.  Cobalt Blue and Phthalo Green with Titanium White
2.  Alizarin Crimson Hue and Phthalo Green with Titanium White
3.  Benzi Burnt Orange and Phthalo Green with Titanium White
4.  Phthalo Green and Phthalo blue with Titanium White
5.  Cobalt Blue and Phthalo Green with Titanium White
6.  Cerulean Blue and Phthalo Green with Titanium White
7.  Cobalt Blue and Phthalo Green with Titanium White
8.  Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green with Titanium White