Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Definitive guide for 2021
- Peter Wright
- Dec 31, 2020
- 9 min read
Updated: Jan 4, 2021
Painting with acrylics can give us incredible results if we learn to use them correctly. With practice and dedication it is possible to learn to paint with acrylic paint and to handle the technique without secrets. At Peter Wright Art we regularly offer tips on how to improve your painting skills.
INDEX
Acrylic Paint Story
Composition of Acrylic Paints
Acrylic Painting: Advantages and Disadvantages
Properties of Acrylic Paints
10 Tips for Beginners on Acrylic Painting techniques
Importance of Color in Acrylic Paints
Techniques for Working with Acrylic Paint
Acrylic Paint Palettes
Acrylic Paint Story
Colors, paints and coatings classified as "acrylic" are based on synthetic or real resins. They began to be manufactured in the United States in the late 1940s. Then, from the 1960s, acrylic paint began to be manufactured also in Europe. Since then it began to be used in the handicrafts sector and in the industrial sector, as well as in art and amateur art.
Depending on the type of resin used in the production, acrylic paint has more or less good dilution capacity and adhesion to water. Due to the interaction of its individual components, it quickly turns into a waterproof and elastic film after application on canvas or other materials.
Composition of Acrylic Paints
Acrylic paint has three components:
Solvents that dissolve the binder and evaporate when the processed paint dries. As a general rule, this is water, which causes a slight decrease in the volume of the paint when the water evaporates. The water solubility of acrylic is also a great advantage over oil paints that are diluted with turpentine when painting, meaning that the latter are polluting.
Pigments that provide the true coloration of the mixture and differ according to organic, inorganic and effect pigments. These components allow you on the one hand to cover the surface correctly and on the other to mix colors.
Binding agents that ensure that the pigments adhere to each other and to the substrate. In acrylic paint, the synthetic resin particles give the paint its characteristic properties.
Acrylic Painting: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
It is not toxic. Even if there are some additives in acrylic paint, it is not harmful to your health.
Acrylic paint dries very quickly and therefore allows you to paint and add new layers very quickly. This greatly speeds up the learning process to paint with acrylic and then of course the process for the experienced painter.
Depending on the acrylic paint and thinner, it can be used for first-hand painting or to cover other layers.
Acrylic paints can be easily diluted with water.
It could be considered advantageous for those who want to start learning to paint.
The colors have a lot of strength and shine.
After drying, acrylic paint is waterproof.
Different tools can be used to apply this type of paint, such as brushes, spatulas or sponges.
Acrylic paint can be applied to a variety of media, such as canvas, wood, and paper.
Disadvantages
Achieving natural tones with acrylic paint can be challenging.
Although it is possible to lengthen the drying with certain components, the fast drying time can be a disadvantage. Requires painting without interruptions.
After painting it loses some shine.
Once dry, acrylic shrinks.
Properties of Acrylic Paints
The color palette of industrially made acrylic paints is not as extensive as that of watercolor or oil paints.
Acrylic paints are water-based paints. Therefore, they dry very quickly and cannot be removed after drying.
When wet, the binder has a milky color, which becomes transparent when it dries. Therefore, acrylic colors darken a bit after drying.
Acrylic paints will adhere to almost any surface, including already dried acrylic paint. They also can be used on all absorbent surfaces.
Acrylic colors can be processed to all possible consistencies and with a variety of artist tools such as paint brushes, spatulas and knives and can be combined with many different materials, such as textured pastes, sand, etc.
The colors made of acrylic are very light and resistant to aging. Neither the colors themselves nor the acrylic paints fade or yellow when exposed to light, even with a high UV content. Therefore, they are also suitable as exterior coatings.
Acrylic paints are very elastic, so you can even apply them to a smooth surface or form sculptural works.
Acrylic paints are practically odorless and can be easily removed. It is easy to clean tools and pallets.
For optimal paint without cracks, work should be done at certain temperatures. The optimal processing temperature is between 15 ° C and 25 ° C.
10 Tips for Beginners on Acrylic Painting techniques
It is worth looking at and learning about color theory to learn how to mix paint and not waste material due to unsuccessful attempts.
To mix the colors, you can use saucer paper if you don't have a professional palette.
To get started, you can place the canvas on a table or flat surface. To protect the surface of the acrylic paint, plastic wrap or a slightly thicker layer of newspaper can be placed underneath. Later it will be worth thinking about buying an easel.
Wear a paint apron or old clothes. Acrylic paint can wash reasonably well from clothing, but once it's dry it can hardly be removed.
Use black sparingly, as once mixed and when the color is too dark, it is difficult to lighten the mixture. Acrylic paint tends to darken after drying, so it is best not to darken more than it should.
If the color is changed, it is advisable to clean the brush well to avoid contaminating the mixture with the old color and thus obtaining a wrong color.
Acrylic paint dries very quickly, but if faster drying is needed, a hair dryer can be used to speed up the drying process of acrylic paint.
Most paint surfaces, like canvases, do not have to be pre-treated because they are already prepared.
Use water in moderation. It is convenient to dry the brushes with a cloth after wetting them in water, otherwise the acrylic paint may be too liquid and the color will lose strength.
Importance of Color in Acrylic Paints
As a general rule of thumb, the colors that can be purchased for acrylic paint are really beautiful and magnificent and are enough to get started with the acrylic painting technique. If you are looking to expand the color palette, it makes sense to mix different colors. But here some caution is required: color mixes can quickly end up an unattractive and indefinable gray-brown. That is why it is important to be very careful when mixing colors. When mixing acrylic paints, start with the lightest color and gradually add the darker color until the desired color or tone is obtained.
Colors can be mixed using a wet brush or putty knife. If you are looking for soft colors diluted in water, what can be done is to use acrylic binder to ensure better adhesion to the paint surface.
Techniques for Working with Acrylic Paint
Hardly any color is as versatile as acrylic. Acrylic paint can be painted with a brush, smeared with a sponge, but can also be applied with a spatula or sprayed with a brush. Combinations of these techniques allow for a powerful design, especially since they can be complemented with other materials.
It can be applied thick and pasty on the surface of the paint, but it can also be heavily diluted with water and overlaid in several layers. Mixing or applying various aids creates exciting structures that can be shaped as desired. The following painting techniques are just a selection of the different possibilities when working with acrylic paints:
Alla Prima: The colors are mixed almost exclusively on the palette and then spontaneously applied in one go and without smooth color transitions.
Layered paint: Here several opaque layers of paint are placed one on top of the other. Due to their short drying time, acrylic paints are particularly suitable for this painting technique.
Wet on wet: The wet-on-wet technique originally comes from oil painting. With this technique, a new shade of color is applied to a layer of paint that has not yet dried. Since acrylic paints dry very quickly, the wet-on-wet technique requires speed or the addition of a drying retarder. This technique is often worked on on a surface moistened with water. As long as the paint is wet, other colors can be added. The added colors should have a similar watery consistency.
Collage: Acrylic paints have very good adhesion properties, so they are ideal for collage techniques where paper, photos, and other printed materials are glued. The special adhesive properties of the acrylic medium open up endless possibilities for the user in the collage area. Lightweight items and papers can be attached to the canvas with acrylic paint and pastes or gels can be used to apply heavier or more compact collage materials. Non-elastic wood surfaces are more suitable than canvas for painting heavy collage elements.
Pointillism: The human eye has limited resolution and therefore perceives at a distance an area filled with dots in different but related colors as a mixed color. The painting technique known as pointillism was developed in the 19th century by the Frenchman Georges Seurat. However, this technique is very tedious and time consuming. But the result is impressive.
Painted with spatula: Using the spatula technique, paste-like acrylic paint or structural paste is applied to the surface of the painting with a knife or spatula. There is no other type of paint that works better than acrylic for this type of technique. However, the layers should not become too thick here either, otherwise the surface tends to break.
Enamel paint: This painting technique, which is also known as clear painting, is done with highly diluted acrylic paints. When painting with enamel, the painting is always done from light to dark. Individual layers of color are laid on top of each other so that the layers of color underneath shine and blend together to form an overall image. If the paint is to be thinned further it is advisable to use acrylic binders instead of water.
Sponge technique: Sponges are also very suitable for acrylic paints. Large areas can be covered with them faster than with a brush and are also good for loose and openwork color effects. However, they are not practical for fine details. Natural sponges produce particularly beautiful and organic patterns. They are quite expensive, but last a long time if you wash them well before the paint dries. Experiments with brushes and foam rollers or household sponges are also worthwhile because their patterns complement other structures well.
Sgraffito: this is a technique that combines very well with acrylic paint. The process requires two coats of paint, one dry and one wet. The latter is applied to the already dry layer of paint and scraped in places with a tool while still wet to re-expose the paint on the undercoat. Choosing the right tools depends on the desired line width. Images can be constructed by placing a light color on a dark surface and scratching the shapes in the wet color with a sharp tool.
Impasto: Acrylic paint mixed with gel or structural paste is generally used for Impastos. With the Impasto painting technique, the paint is applied very thick. Acrylic paints can be given even more volume, especially with gel paint materials. The Impasto technique generally creates rich colors and, particularly when structural pastes are used, a striking structure that can be varied. It is not necessary to use the Impasto technique in the entire work, in fact it is used to design a center of attention or accent to the work. Since acrylic paint dries very quickly, it is very suitable for impasto techniques. Although thick applications are possible in one step, it is advisable to apply the coats one after the other and allow each coat to dry before laying the next one on top. Doing this with oil paint could take weeks or months to dry.
Acrylic Paint Palettes
Wooden pallets, although very pretty, are not very suitable for acrylic paint as they penetrate the surface and after the paint has dried on the palette it cannot be removed.
Therefore, the use of palettes with hard, non-porous surfaces is much more common in acrylic paint than in oil paint. On these surfaces, dry acrylic paints do not penetrate, but instead form a non-stick film, which can simply be peeled off or removed during the cleaning phase.
Materials with such properties are plastic, ceramic, glass, and stainless steel.
Glass or ceramic pallets are particularly popular because they look like new after cleaning. Plastic pallets are usually very inexpensive, but they can look stained and unsightly over time.
Some professional artists rely on glass palettes, because the transparency of the palette allows the colors to be compared to the actual work when the colors are mixed with the color of the painted background.
There are artists who instead of buying a ceramic palette, which are relatively expensive, use an old plate as a palette.
Colors dry slightly faster on so-called flat palettes than on recessed palettes. For this reason, recessed pallets work best when mixing large amounts of acrylic paint, while flat pallets should work best for relatively small jobs. There are also models with a kind of lid, which largely prevents the colors from drying out quickly.
There are also disposable palettes made from special paper that can also be used for acrylic paint as long as the paper doesn't absorb moisture from the paint too quickly. In addition to the ripple of the palette, this can also cause acrylic paints to dry very quickly.
The shape of the palette is not very important, it is a matter of taste. There are various shapes, from the traditional kidney shape to round, square or rectangular variants. You have to decide for yourself whether a thumb hole is useful or not. You just have to try some models.
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