ALKYDS - An incredible paint

What are Alkyds? (pronounced “al - kids”) Alkyds are very similar to a traditional oil paint but are made with pigments suspended in oil modified alkyd resin and solvent. What this means is that alkyd paints behave like oil paints, but dry in about half the time of conventional oils.

Guy Junker primarily paints with Windsor & Newton Griffin Alkyds which are classified as a fast drying oil color that is made with pigments and oil modified alkyd resin. Griffin Alkyds can be thinned with traditional oil color solvents and mediums. Alkyds' main advantage over oil paints is that they are dry to the touch in 18 to 24 hours and can usually be varnished in 30 days.

Fast dry time, greater translucency and luminosity from the tube and a more fluid consistency are some of the advantages of using alkyd paints instead of oils. Other advantages of Winsor & Newton Alkyd Oil Colours are extraordinary stability and stretchability. Tests on twenty-year old Winsor & Newton alkyds show the paint film remaining stretchable up to 10% before breaking. That’s amazing, considering that traditional oil colours of the same age exhibit stretchability of only 1-2%.

What this means to the collector is that your investment in one of Guy’s paintings will not crack over time and insures the color and finish of your artwork will remain vibrant and true for generations to come.