Years ago, back when I started painting, I was working at the paint counter in a hardware store in Brockton, MA. At the time, we carried a couple brands of paint-- Pittsburgh and California Paints. Pittsburgh was sort of on the way out at the time, as the brand was faltering. We started being heavily courted by sales reps from Benjamin Moore and they had a superior product to Pittsburgh's, so we began stocking them too, but California Paints will always be my very favourite brand (for my artwork, anyway. For walls, there's nothing on the market I've seen which even comes close to the quality, ease-of use, and economy of Ben Moore's Aura line- that stuff goes white-over-red in ONE rolled coat).
Back when I was working the paint counter at Irving's, I used a lot of different paints under circumstances a person normally wouldn't, in the pursuit of the perfect color match. I used maybe every major brand at one time or another (old cans from people's basements and fresh stock from competitors) because homeowners and contractors alike would need colours matched from them. A lot of my very earliest painting experiments happened in between customers on slow days mixing paints loosely in cups at the paint counter.
One thing crucial to my work that I discovered there, and then explored more fully in my studio at home, was that different paints have different relative densities. This isn't anything that would normally come up. You'd brush a coat on, let it dry, and then apply another coat. But because I'm creating deep pools of one color and then putting another into it, the paint can do things it was never meant to do. I need to maintain a mindfulness of these relative densities at all times when I'm working or else whole sections of a piece can disintegrate as the colours on the surface of the pool slowly seep down underneath.
In the beginning, I was using whatever house paints I could get my hands on cheaply. At the time, this was for the most part "mistints." Mistints are cans of paint at a store that were made the wrong color and are irretrievably over-saturated with colorant. There were a lot of paint stores in the area that would sell me gallon cans for between $1 and $5, or give me pallets of them for free if I just took them no-questions-asked. I'd augment this motley collection of paints with the purchase of various brighter colours, blacks and whites at the store at regular price. Back at the studio, I'd play.
And this brings me (finally) to why I'm in love with Larcoloid. As I found to be true with ANY paint, the yellow and red pigment particles are denser and smaller in size, and therefore are very difficult to get to stay up on the surface where I put them, but with Larcoloid, this effect is significantly lessened. The facts that the product is also self-priming, high-gloss and very flexible when dry are all bonuses. What really matters to me is being able to concentrate on the work itself without battling the paint at every turn. Because the relative densities seem to be much more uniform across all of the Larcoloid products, this becomes very easy.
I've noticed recently that Ben Moore reps seem to be specifically targeting California dealers, and more and more, it's getting very difficult to find my paint, as stores slowly begin stocking the former instead of the latter. One day, I may no longer be able to get my hands on it and if that ever happens, I'll have to embark on a new product search. I hope that day never comes, but whatever happens, Larcoloid, you're the best paint I ever had.
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