Liquitex Basics Acrylic Review 48 Set Color Chart Swatch Cards and Lightfast Test

Liquitex Basics is a student grade acrylic paint. Many of their colors are multi-pigment mixtures, offering a huge selection to beginner artists. This helps students who may not be comfortable with color mixing to pick and choose from pre-made convenience colors.

 

Liquitex overall uses high quality, lightfast pigments and makes paints with a shelf-stable, waterproof binder. I took a break from acrylic painting for the past five years after discovering my love for watercolor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my old 48 tube set still worked like new, with only a few of the more sedimentary granulating browns (Umbers) having coagulated into a slightly thicker viscosity.

 

The acrylic binder is very water-soluble making it easily diluted with water for use on watercolor paper. It can even be used to create gradient washes and most colors will have a salt-texture reaction (as seen on the swatch cards below). This is not always the case in some brands with particularly thick binders that resist being able to be used with watercoloring techniques. Because they dry waterproof, they could be used in mixed media as resist layers. By painting an area with Liquitex Acrylic, it forms a glue-like waterproof film that will repel layers of watercolor, allowing for using them similarly to permanent masking fluid on watercolor paper.

 

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Swatch cards with pigment information, lightfast ratings and opacity notes:
PY3 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cadmium Yellow Light Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY74 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Primary Yellow color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY74 PY83 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY83 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY74 PR9 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cadmium Red Light Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PO73 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cadmium Orange Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR170 PY174 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cadmium Red Medium Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PO73 PY74 PR170 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Light Portrait Pink color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PR122 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Medium Magenta color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR122 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Quinacridone Magenta color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR170 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Napthol Crimson color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PV19 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Primary Red color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR206 PR202 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Alizarin Crimson Hue Permanent color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR206 PR202 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Alizarin Crimson Hue Permanent color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR122 PV23 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Prism Violet color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR122 PV23 RS Liquitex Basics Acrylic Deep Violet color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PV23 RS Red Shade Liquitex Basics Acrylic Dioxazine Purple color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PV23 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Brilliant Purple color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PB15-3 PG7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Light Blue Violet color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PB29 PY23 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Light Blue Permanent color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PB15:3 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Primary Blue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PB29 PB15:3 PG7 PW6 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cerulean Blue Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PB29 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Ultramarine Blue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PB29 PB15:3 PW6 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Cobalt Blue Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PB15:3 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Phthalo Blue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PY3 PY74 PG7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Brilliant Yellow Green color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PG7 PY74 PW6 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Light Green Permanent color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PG7 PW6 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Bright Aqua Green color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PG7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Phthalo Green color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PG36 PBk7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Deep Green color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PG7 PBk9 PY74 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Hooker's Green Hue Permanent color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PY42 PY83 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Naples Yellow Hue color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY42 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Yellow Oxide color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY42 PBk11 PR101 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Bronze Yellow color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PBr7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Raw Sienna color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PBr7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Burnt Sienna color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PR101 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Red Oxide color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PBr7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Burnt Umber color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PBr7 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Raw Umber color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PY42 PBk9 PW6 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Neutral Gray Value 5 color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PBk9 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Ivory Black color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PBk11 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Mars Black color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 PY42 PBk11 PR101 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Unbleached Titanium color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic PW6 Liquitex Basics Acrylic Titanium White color separating granulating pigment shimmer metallic

 

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If you'd like to see how each color compares to the same pigment from another brand, check out the pigment database here.

 

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