Acrylic Painting

The Advantages of Acrylic Painting

Acrylic paints offer several advantages for the novice painter. For example:

• Acrylic paints are easy to use. You don’t need to work with messy paint thinner or wait hours for your painting to dry.
• They can be used to create a variety of different looks. For example, paint applied straight from the tube has an opaque appearance. But, when you dilute the paint with water, you can mimic the appearance of a watercolor painting.
• Acrylic paint can be used as a glue for collage projects when it is applied thickly.
• Clean up is surprisingly easy. Acrylic painting projects only require soap and water to keep your brushes clean.

Buying Supplies

To begin painting with acrylics, you’ll need to purchase brushes, a palette, canvas, and paint. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a several different colors to begin painting. If you’re on a tight budget, white, black, red, yellow, and blue paints can be mixed to create plenty of color options.

Acrylic painting supplies can be purchased from major craft stores such as Michaels Crafts or Hobby Lobby. However, you can also buy supplies online from the following websites:

• Dick Blick
• Mister Art
• The Art Store
• Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff
• Madison Art Shop

When you’re purchasing acrylic paints, you may notice that some paints are labeled as student quality while others claim to be artist grade products. Student quality paints are generally much cheaper than artist grade paint, but they are often made with more fillers and low quality pigments. Most painting experts will agree that it’s best to buy the highest quality paints you can afford.

Getting Started

As you’re experimenting with your acrylic paints, remember the following tips:

• Acrylic paints will dry fast, so you should only squeeze a small amount of paint out of the tube at one time.
• If your paint starts to dry, spray a fine mist of water over your palette.
• If you need to improve the flow of your paint, but don’t want to dilute the color, use a flow-improver medium instead of adding water to the paint.
• Although you can mix different brands of acrylics paint together to create a custom color, acrylics can not be mixed with oil paints.
• To produce a sharp edge on your project, use masking tape. If the bottom layer of paint is dry, the tape will not damage your painting.
• If your finished painting isn’t going to be framed under glass, apply a coat of varnish to protect it from dirt and dust.

Additional Resources

If you’re interested in learning more about painting with acrylics, check out the following helpful links:

• Acrylic Painting
• A Direct Approach to Acrylic Painting
• Acrylic Painting the Cheap and Easy Way
• Free Painting Lessons
• Painting Demonstration in Watermedia
• Mixing Values with Acrylics

You may also find these reference books to be useful additions to your craft room:

• The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles & Techniques by Rachel Wolf
• An Introduction to Acrylics by Ray Campbell Smith
• The Acrylics Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist by Barclay Sheaks
• Acrylic School: A Practical Guide to Painting with Acrylic by Hazel Harrison