The water-dilutable acrylic artist's paint was created in 1963 by the Liquitex brand of chemist Henry Levinson. It is immediately used by painters Andy Warhol, David Hockney.
Au Mexico it was invented in the middle of the Twentieth century toward 1950. Chemists from the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, in collaboration with Mexican master mural painters, developed it during the creation of the frescoes on the facades of the University of Mexico. The writings of David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican painter-muralist): "Art and the Revolution", tell in detail the development of this pictorial technique put on the market in 1950.
She does not appear in Europe before 1960s : Pierre Alechinsky discovered her in New York in 1965.

Acrylic paint is made up of two elements:

• The pigments : similar to those of oil paint, of mineral or organic origin, natural (rare) or synthetic. Unlike oil painting, the level of grinding of pigments should not be too fine.
• Le binder : an emulsion of water and acrylic or polymer resin. A variant is the acrylo-vinyl binder (vinyl paint). The texture of the binder is more or less fluid depending on the manufacturer.

A load can then be added to this paste in order to increase its volume.

The main quality of acrylic paint is its docility: dilution with water (without excess), miscibility, mixtures easy to prepare, ease of application, versatility of supports, low odor. It is very solid and indelible. It has the particularity of drying very quickly, in a few minutes.

It thus differs from the oil painting, very slow to dry but which allows the fades and repentance.

Source: Extract from articles Wikipedia.

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