Ready Tex Paints are made by Salis International and are a Dr. Ph. Martin's product.

I love the Dr. P.h. Martin's Ready Tex paints. First, let me make a comparison of them to standard craft acrylic paints. Most all stampers have some craft acrylic paints sitting on their shelves, so I think it's a place to start.

Craft acrylic paints (like Plaid or Folk Art brand) are not permanent. If you paint with them on something, you either have to seal over it or mix something else (like textile medium for fabric painting) in to make it permanent. They are also not real lightfast. (if they are NOT lightfast, that means they fade easily under direct sunlight)

Dr. Ph. Martin's Ready Tex Paint is one of the best all-around multi surface/mutli use paints I've come across. I use them a LOT for MANY things. They ARE lightfast (some colors will naturally be more lightfast than others) and they are permanent when heat set. They are high quality artist grade acrylic paints and come in over 70 colors (the metallics are quite luscious!!!)

Are they expensive? No they are not.

I'm not sure how much craft acrylics cost, it really depends on whether you find them on sale or not. But I'm sure the Ready Tex is a bit more expensive. However, if you add up what it will cost you to finish a project with the cheaper craft acrylics (add in the cost of sealants and additives to make it versatile and permanent on all surfaces), you will find that in the long run the cheap craft acrylics will cost more. With the Ready Tex paints, you can paint them on ANY surface and they will be permanent when heat set, they WILL air dry....they ARE gorgeous...and you don't have to add anything to or on them before or after painting. I use them "as is" on fabrics for t-shirt painting.

Ready Tex does not make fabrics stiff at all. I use Ready Tex "as is" effectively on glass, plastic, wood, cardstocks (both glossy and matte), porcelain, transparencies, leather, polymer clay, paper clay, 3-d vinyl..etc etc etc. You can paint with it normally...or sponge it on your stamps and stamp with it. (just don't let the paint dry on the stamp, wash it off immediately) You can sponge, splatter, paint...use lots of different techniques with these paints. I have a pretty nice tips file on the Dr. Martin's Ready Tex paints on my web site in the Tips & Techs files.

These paints can also be mixed without muddying the colors for custom colors, if you like to do that.

I did run into a few small problems when using my Ready Tex paints, but I was able to figure out solutions to those problems. First, if you use Ready Tex on vellum, the vellum tends to curl. This is not a problem unique to Ready Tex when using vellums because I've had it happen with other products as well. My solution was to cut my vellum the desired size, then press it onto the back of white sticker paper - then stamp and paint the vellum. This sticker paper solution gave me three advantages: 1: It held the vellum securely "in place" and it didn't curl, 2: since I used white sticker paper the color of paint remained true (if you use colored sticker paper, the color will show thru the vellum and alter some colors of the transparent Ready Tex colors), 3: Since I used matte sticker paper, I now had a nice matte back and I could glue it to another piece of cardstock easily and not have the glue show thru the vellum. The one disadvantage of this is that I lost the beautiful transparent nature of the vellum. I have also "sandwiched" the stamped vellum in between two pieces of cardstock that have a window opening cut into them to show the stamped vellum and then painted it. This cured the vellum curling problem and allowed me to retain the beautiful transparent nature of the vellum. I have been told the Xyron works beautifully for this as well. you can either laminate the back of the vellum or create a stick with the vellum and this cures the curling problem. However, I don't have a Xyron to play with so I had to make do with what I had.

Some colors of the Ready Tex will bleed on fabrics. Once I "got to know" my paints, and figured out which ones bled on fabric, I was able to alter my style of painting to accommodate that. Meaning, I wouldn't paint right on the outer line, but touch my brush inside a bit so that it bled out ONLY to the line and not outside it. Not all the colors bleed on fabrics. The Ready Tex metallics are luscious and do not bleed out at all, which is true of probably about 95% of all the colors. I noticed the bleeding problem mostly with the orange and bright yellow colors. However, even given the fact that only a few of the colors bleed....I still prefer the Ready Tex paints at this point in time as my fabric paint because they DO NOT make the fabric stiff at all and are VERY permanent when heat set. Honestly...the t-shirt I made for my daughter using Ready Tex paints doesn't even LOOK like I stamped it, it looks like I just freehand painted it and is so soft.

One big tip here....is that the Ready Tex colors are either Transparent, Opaque or Metallic. RubberArt has a color chart on their web site for Ready Tex that tells you which paints are transparent, opaque or metallic. Note that the metallics are somewhat opaque but still a bit transparent. I went and marked the top of each color of my Ready Tex with a T (transparent), O (opaque) or M (metallic)...so I can see at a glance how each color will act when painting. If you have an opaque color that you want a bit more transparent...mix some of the Ready Tex COLOR EXTENDER into the paint and it makes it more transparent. (just mix a few drops of color extender with a few drops of paint..eyeball it) If you have a transparent color that you wish was more opaque, mix the OPAQUE WHITE into it...this will lighten it a bit as white does, but it will also make it more opaque. OK...now let's say you want to make a lighter color of the any of the paints and do not want to make them either more transparent or more opaque. You want them to stay as they are (either transparent, opaque or metallic) but to be lighter in appearance. To achieve this, mix the TINTING WHITE into your paint. Do note that even the tinting white will create a small amount opaqueness, but not nearly as much as the opaque white. Now....let's also say that you want one of your transparent colors to have a bit of shimmer in it like the metallics do. Mix the Silver Metallic into any color of the paint and it will slightly lighten the color and add some shimmer. I even found that mixing the 18 Karat Gold with the Emerald Green creates a very nice shimmery greenish gold color which I quite like. Anyway, the possibilities when you mix colors are endless.

Tips for painting on a non-porous surface with Ready Tex. (surfaces like glass, ceramic tiles, plastic CD cases, etc...) If you try to paint normally...using brush strokes...you will see the brush strokes. To get away from the "stroked appearance"...you simply need to train yourself to NOT paint. What you WANT to do...is use your brush to "lead/guide" the paint into/over the areas of choice. If you load up your brush with paint, it will "wick down" (flow off the bristles onto the surface) on your surface and then you use the brush to move the paint over the surface without touching the surface itself. I know this sounds terribly hard, but if you try it once, you'll see what I'm saying and that it is NOT hard at all.