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New Golden SoFlat Matte Acrylic

Date: 30-05-2022
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Super matte, self-levelling and so easy to brush out, the new SoFlat Matte Acrylic presents an exciting colour experience within the Golden range. Using genuine artist pigments and full-strength binders, SoFlat creates immersive fields of colour without the distraction of texture and glare.

How flat is SoFlat? Surface sheen is measured in Gloss Units (GU) where 100 is polished black glass. While Golden usually allows each individual pigment to show its unique refractive quality, SoFlat is consistently matte. Golden Fluid and Heavy Body Acrylics range between 8 – 100GU; all the SoFlat colours lie between just 0.4 – 2.8GU…very flat matte indeed!

 

The lower half of this canvas panel is underpainted with Neutral Grey 6 (to show the relative opacity), then the left side is painted with Golden SoFlat Ultramarine, and the right side with Golden Heavy Body Ultramarine. Golden SoFlat provides a very even, glare-free, matte and mostly opaque blue compared to the Heavy Body. Translucent colours such as Heavy Body Ultramarine tend towards uneven tone due to varying thicknesses of colour absorbing varying amounts of light. The opaque nature of SoFlat Ultramarine renders it uniform.

The unique matte formulation helps to make SoFlat colours more opaque than usual, so that even colours that are usually transparent, for example Phthalo Green (Blue Shade) and Ultramarine Blue, are semi-opaque in SoFlat. The exceptions are the six fluorescent hues – made from dyes, not pigment (and therefore not lightfast): these colours remain semi-transparent and are best used over white or painted thickly.

 

Matte, opaque colours create surfaces that have a velvet glow, perfect for paintings with a graphic or poster sensibility, where impact is valued over depth.

Golden SoFlat has a silky fluid consistency and brushes out beautifully – smooth and even. It becomes matte as it dries and the surface self-levels. In its appearance, SoFlat is very similar to gouache (opaque watercolour), yet being a true acrylic SoFlat is much easier to layer, dries water-resistant and has a much better flow than gouache over paper.

 

Golden SoFlat is silky smooth to apply, brushing out easily; and the gloss and brush marks dry into a velvet-matte, even flat surface.

SoFlat will adhere on all the same surfaces as other Golden acrylic colours: paper, canvas, plexiglass, and even over glass and metal with a prior coat of Golden GAC200.

 

Golden SoFlat can be extended with 25% Pouring Medium Matte and still retain its unique characteristics. Although these colours are mostly opaque and semi-opaque, extending SoFlat further with this medium allows you to create wonderful veils of matte colour.

SoFlat is produced using the same professional standards as all GOLDEN Acrylics, and can be combined with other Golden acrylic paints and mediums to increase the range of creative effects that you can achieve. To extend SoFlat and increase transparency while retaining the matte sheen, add up to 25% Golden Pouring Medium Matte or Golden Super Matte Medium; more than 25% will slightly increase the gloss as well as the transparency.

 

This is where the real fun starts – combining SoFlat with the huge range of other Golden products! Painting Soft Gel Gloss on areas of SoFlat (left & middle) creates dark, gloss tones. Light Molding Paste is the perfect matte paste for making textured surfaces that SoFlat loves to glide over.

Some other Golden mediums that work extremely well with SoFlat are worth a mention here.

  • For a textured SoFlat surface, make the textured ground first from a paste such as Golden Light Molding Paste, as the smooth consistency and self-levelling qualities of SoFlat don’t lend it to impasto techniques.
  • A drop or two of Golden OPEN Thinner extends the drying time, so you can work longer.
  • Even oilcolours can be painted over a SoFlat background, though to avoid oil “halos” a layer of Golden Fluid Matte Medium should be laid down and left to dry first.

 

The velvet darkness of SoFlat Payne’s Grey creates a vivid distinction from the adjacent Heavy Body pastel colours, increasing the sense of depth in this example.

Golden SoFlat works well in combination with standard acrylic colours. The super matte, opaque nature of SoFlat provides high contrast with the satin-gloss sheen of Heavy Body and Fluid Acrylics, to give you dramatic contrast between surfaces. Using SoFlat to accentuate surface variation works well where you want a velvet-like depth next to more textured, layered areas.

Due to the amount of pigment and matting agents, give SoFlat a stir or shake before use. Unlike other acrylics, shaking won’t cause excessive bubbles to form. Colour can be used straight from the pot or dispensed onto a palette using your palette knife.

The full range of 40 Golden SoFlat Matte Acrylics are available in-store and on our webstore in 59ml pots, with selected colours in 118ml size.

 

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