You are halfway through an Acrylic painting, with all the colours beautifully mixed on a palette, turned away for just 2 minutes and came back to completely dry paints??! We all know Acrylic Paints are quick-drying and they dry permanent, the question is how do we make them stay wet long enough for us to complete a painting?
We can slow down the drying time of Acrylic Paints by adding in acrylic medium, this medium is usually called 'retarder'. Retarder is ad additive with a gel-like consistency, you will add into Acrylic Paints, to extend the drying time and workability of paints.
By adding an equal part of retarder to your acrylic paints allow you a little more time to work with the paints.
This is the final outcome, the paint without retarder (left) is dried completely after 2minutes whereby the one with retarder (right) is still wet. There is also no obvious change in colour.
