Great Acrylic Painting Tips for Beginners

Buying Paint

It is best to invest in good quality materials when it comes to acrylic painting. You may be restricted by a budget, but if you invest in good paints and brushes you will save money over time. This is especially a must if you are wanting to sell your work.

Poor-quality acrylic paint can often be translucently requiring you to lay down a lot of layers to get an opaque layer of colour. For example, a cheap acrylic yellow is notoriously translucent. If you are painting yellow on your painting you will have to paint down multiple layers of the colour before it stops showing whatever colour or ground is beneath it.

If you are restricted by a budget, the good news is that you do not need a lot of colours right from the start! You could even start with a limited palette (red, blue, yellow, white and burnt umber). If you have a little more money left to purchase more colours you can get 12. However, you will never need much more than that as you will be able to mix your colours to get the specific colours you will need!

Supports – what to paint on

You have a wide range of surfaces available to paint on when it comes to acrylic painting. There is canvas, canvas board, paper, and MDF board.

Cotton – This is what most artists use for their acrylic paintings. It is a popular choice because of its weave and affordability. It can either be stretched over stretcher bars or glued down to a hardwood surface. When using acrylic paints you do not need to prime the surface of cotton canvas. This is because acrylic paint will not seep into the cloth as oil paint does. So, you can just get started right away painting on raw cotton canvas!

Canvas Board – These were initially made for painters to use outdoors. However, some use it consistently in and out of the studio as they are less likely to get damaged than stretched canvas. They are also typically easier to frame than a regular stretched canvas. However, often the surface of canvas boards can be very poor and cheaply made.

Paper – Paper is a great surface to use for acrylic painting! Just like a cotton canvas, you can apply acrylic paint directly to a paper surface. It can be a good affordable painting surface. Just be sure to get a proper heavyweight watercolour paper.

MDF – MDF board (medium-density fiberboard) is also a good option for an acrylic painting surface. It is available in most DIY stores. I have purchased some from a lumber store. The downside of this surface is that it can be very heavy. So, when it comes to framing and hanging up a painting… you need strong nails ?? Just be sure to prime the MDF surface.?

Keep your Paint Moist

Acrylics dry very fast, sometimes too fast! Especially if you are painting out of doors in a dry climate. If your acrylic paints are drying faster than you would like give your colors a little spray of water from time to time during your painting session. This is one of the best acrylic painting tips and will help to keep your colours moist! You can often find small spray bottles at a drug store, or dollar store.

Just be careful not to add too much water to your paint. Otherwise, it might be difficult for the paint to adhere and or it will slough off the canvas. Keep the misting of your paint in moderation.

Blending with Acrylics

Oil paints are known for being ‘blend-able’, however, you can blend with acrylic paints too! You just need to work a little quicker than usual to be able to blend paints since acrylic paints dry so quickly.

Paint wet paint on top of another layer of wet paint. Stroke the paint blending the two colours together.

Mixing Colors is Important?Learning how to mix colours is so important that you should spend more time mixing colours than on your actual painting.

Be sure to use your palette to mix your paints and not your canvas. Since acrylic paints dry so quickly you do not want to mix on your painting because your paints might dry before you are able to mix the desired colour!

Acrylic Paint tends to darken as it dries

Acrylic paints have a tendency to darken as they dry. So, when you paint with acrylics keep this in mind!

When mixing your colours allow for a slight darkening. This darkening effect is more likely to happen with lighter colours than colours that are already dark. Over time you will gain more experience as to how your painting will darken, allowing you to decide how to mix your colours.

Clean your brushes properly

It is very important that you wash your brushes after every painting session. Failing to do so will result in many ruined brushes! The acrylic paint will dry on your brushes rendering them unusable.

It can be quite time-consuming to wash brushes after every painting session, especially if you paint very often. To save time you can instead submerge the tips of your brushes in a water bowl. Try to keep your bristles as flat as possible as you do not want your brushes to lose their shape and fold. When you are ready to paint again, simply take the brushes out of the water and dry them on a paper towel.

Use large-sized brushes.

There are multiple advantages to using larger-sized brushes when acrylic painting. They increase brushwork economy allowing you to cover more of the canvas in a shorter period of time.

In addition, larger-sized brushes make you think of each stroke more than when painting with smaller-sized brushes.

It is a misconception that smaller-sized brushes are used to create realistic paintings. In fact, the opposite is very much the case! The old masters used much larger brushes than you would expect.

It is important to simplify when painting. And nothing helps you to simplify more than using larger-sized brushes. They help you to think in terms of the bigger picture instead of smaller details.

Did you learn something valuable? Comment “yes!” below and let me know!