Schmincke Aero Color is a highly pigmented acrylic with the consistency of ink. The range is popular with acrylic painters, pour painters, airbrushers, and urban sketchers because of its versatility and the wide range of luminous, water-resistant colours. In addition to the transparent and opaque basic colours, the range includes highly transparent Candy colours and highly opaque Total Cover colours.
Schmincke also offers accompanying Empty Aero Liner Pens to fill with your choice of colour. Artists can also choose from a selection of complementary Aero painting mediums.
Schmincke Aero Color Fluid Acrylic is a low viscosity liquid acrylic formula. It is the least viscous product in the Schmincke acrylic range and can be applied with brushes, Schmincke empty liners, dip pens, or spray guns. They can also be used to tint pouring mediums. Artists can use Aero Color as it comes, or colours can be thinned with water. They dry waterproof and are all lightfast.
Aero Colors are available in 81 colours: 36 standard colours, 24 special effect colours, 12 Total Cover and 9 Candy colours. The 9 Candy colours are highly transparent and ideal for artists working on light surfaces. Total Cover colours are highly opaque and are good for covering dark surfaces.
Schmincke updated the colour chart for the Aero Colors a few years ago to use a shape that imitates a car, demonstrating what the colours would look like on a curved, 3D surface. The coloured car shapes have the upper part brushed on a white ground and the lower part brushed on black.
Transparent Colours
Artists might wonder why nearly two-thirds of Schmincke’s Aero Colors are transparent. The application example below shows colour gradients with the three basic colours: Primary Yellow, Primary Magenta and Primary Cyan.
The resulting colour spectrum can only be achieved by these shades because they are transparent. An opaque shade would cover the underlying colour and prevent the effect.
The advantage of glazing/ transparent colours is that they can be premixed and also mixed in the painting by overlaying transparent colour layers. They can also be made opaque by adding a small amount of Supra White.
Candy Colours
Schmincke Candy colours are 9 highly transparent and intense colours. They are all highly lightfast and have a special silky gloss finish. Due to their high transparency, Candy colours best display their luminosity and depth on light-coloured surfaces.
Candy colours are best applied from light to dark and are particuarly good when layered with Aero effect colours. The strongest depth effect can be achieved in a 3-layer-application: for example, a silver ground coat with Aero Metallic Brilliant Silver, then your choice of Candy colour, followed by the Aero Final Lacquer (Gloss).
All Candy colour swatches show the colour over silver and white grounds. For example, on the blue swatch below, the left side shows Sky Blue over a silver ground. The right side of the swatch shows Sky Blue over a white ground.
Aero Color Professional: Special Colours
Schmincke offers a selection of 24 special effect colours within the range: 6 Aero Shine colours, 9 Metallic colours, 6 Pearl Colours, and 3 Vision colours.
Aero Shine colours produce a glimmering pearlescent effect. Colours shimmer when applied on light surfaces and give off a metallic sheen when applied on dark surfaces. Aero Vision Colours are multi-effect colours whose effect depends on the viewing angle, background colour, and the thickness of the layer. The result is a unique shifting gradation of colours.
The nine Aero Metallic shades ensure solid matt metallic colour and produce unique colour effects when combined with light and effect colours. Aero Pearl colours have a glossy sparkling effect that is well suited to both light and dark surfaces. The colour Dark Hole Black offers an exceptional matt black surface that is ideal as a dark base coat for effect colours.
There are also a number of standard Aero colours with their own useful properties. Brown Brazil is a warm and highly transparent brown which is unique among the colours. One of the ranges most popular colours, its high transparency makes it particularly popular among acrylic and oil painters who use it for warm, transparent and quick-drying underpainting.
Neutral Grey: artists appreciate the good erasing properties of this colour. All Aero colours can be erased in thin layers, however, this colour is particuarly useful for creating shading and light areas. Neutral Grey is also a popular colour when used for creating shadows and backgrounds.