Slow-Dri Gel Additive

We suggest you first avoid adding water to your paint and minimize heat and air flow in your painting environment. Secondly. make use of acrylic mediums to extend the color, especially Slow-Dri Fluid or Gel, Airbrush Medium or Slow-Dri Fluid or Gel Additive. All of these will extend the open time and workability of your color. Remember that only one additive should be used within a color mix as combining additives can compromise the paint film stability.

We have two Liquitex Slow-Dri additives and two mediums. There are some three key differences: the gel and fluid mediums contain acrylic resins so you can add as much as you like to your color; the additives however do not contain resins and need to be handled with care - you can only add a small amount before you start to weaken the paint's structure. The consistency is another difference - the gel medium and additive are perfect for thicker body paints like Heavy Body, and will thicken thinner paints. The fluid medium and additive are better for Soft Body and other more fluid paints, or for thinning. The final main difference is that the Slow-Dri additives will NOT effect transparency levels of your color, while the mediums will.

Additives are used to adjust the chemistry of acrylic paints, but they are very different to the rest of the mediums family. Most acrylic mediums contain high proportions of acrylic resins, but additives do not. With most acrylic mediums, you can add as much as you like to your color without weakening the stability of the acrylic film, while additives will dilute the strength of the acrylic film. This means that you need to be more careful about how much you mix into to your paint or it will have issues around drying, tackiness, separation and durability. Our four additives offer really useful individual benefits, so just make sure you follow the directions for use before starting to work with them.