Learn to Paint with Acrylics for Beginners

Acrylic paint is a fantastic medium for beginners eager to explore the world of painting. Its versatility, ease of use, and quick-drying nature make it an ideal choice for those just starting their artistic journey. You can use it on practically any surface, from canvas and paper to wood, ceramics, fabric, and glass. This article will cover essential acrylic painting techniques, tips, and considerations to help you begin creating your own masterpieces. Acrylics are very forgiving for beginners to work with. They are water-soluble, fast-drying and water-resistant when dry. Perfect for a variety of art projects and applications, from washes and coloured glazes to thick impasto brushstrokes.

Why Choose Acrylics?

Acrylic paints offer numerous advantages for beginners:

Versatility: Acrylics can be used on various surfaces, including canvas, paper, wood, fabric, and more.
Ease of Use: They can be used straight from the bottle or tube, simplifying the painting process.
Easy Cleanup: Acrylics are water-based, making cleanup quick and easy with soap and water.
Low Odor: Unlike oil paints, acrylics don't typically have strong odors or fumes.
Affordability: Many affordable acrylic paint options are available, making it accessible for beginners.
Fast Drying Time: They are great for beginners who like to work quickly, as they dry rapidly.

Essential Materials

Before you start painting, gather these essential materials:

Acrylic Paints: A basic set of acrylic paints with primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and white is a good starting point. Consider investing in artist-quality Titanium White, even if you use student-quality paint for the rest of the colors.
Paintbrushes: Purchase an inexpensive set of paintbrushes with a variety of shapes and sizes to experiment with. Big brushes, fine point brushes, soft bristles and firm, stiff bristles, flat and round brushes are all useful.
Canvas or Painting Surface: Pre-stretched canvases are convenient, and many come pre-primed with gesso. 24 cm x 18 cm pre-primed canvas is a good size to start with.
Palette: A palette is a surface for mixing paints. You can use a disposable palette, a plastic palette, or even a ceramic plate.
Water Container: A jar or container for cleaning your brushes. A jam jar works well.
Palette Knife (Optional): For applying paint in thick layers and creating texture.
Pouring Medium (Optional): For acrylic pouring techniques.
Glazing Medium (Optional): For creating translucent glazes.
Varnish (Optional): To protect your finished painting from light and dust. Varnishes typically come in matte, satin, or gloss finishes.
Pencils: A 3B pencil for sketching out your initial design.
Kitchen roll: For cleaning brushes and mopping up spills.
Small dipper: For diluting paint.

Preparing Your Canvas

If painting with acrylics on canvas, you usually want to be sure the canvas is primed with gesso. Many pre-stretched canvases come pre-primed, so you can often skip this step and paint directly on the canvas. However, some artists may choose to add additional layers of gesso to improve the texture and “grip” of the surface before painting (this is often referred to as “tooth”).

Basic Acrylic Painting Techniques

Layering

Acrylic painting techniques are often characterized by painting in layers. This is mainly because acrylic paints dry relatively fast. Without additives, a moderately thin acrylic paint layer can dry within minutes. In contrast, the thicker the layer you paint, the longer that layer will take to dry, so thicker acrylic paint layers remain workable and open to color mixing or texturizing for a bit longer. However, we are still only talking about a difference of minutes that thicker paint remains workable; it’s not something you can walk away from and come back to an hour or two later and expect to keep working.

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Another consideration when painting layers with acrylics is how opaque or translucent your paint colors are. Paint colors will be labeled either way, but it’s important to understand if the paint you are using will have some translucency to allow the layer beneath it to show through to a degree, or if it is opaque, thus completely covering the layer beneath it. This quality of your different colors may help you determine if you should paint from dark to light or vice versa.

Accepting that you can always start a new layer and paint over something that isn’t working is very liberating. It adds a third dimension to what most think of as painting two-dimensionally. And paintings with multiple layers of paint can have more depth and interesting texture than paintings without.

Color Mixing

Learning to mix paints properly (or in whichever way works best for your style and preferences) is an incredibly important acrylic painting technique. Use a color wheel as a color mixing guide. If you don’t yet know which colors mix to make other colors, a color wheel is an inexpensive and amazing tool to keep handy. Even better - make your own color wheel using paints you have mixed yourself for great practice.

If you don’t have a lot of color mixing confidence or experience, mixing your own acrylic paint colors from only primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) can be time-consuming and lead to dispensing more paint than you needed. It can take some trial and error - a little bit of this, a little more of that - to get your desired colors. To save time and paint, you may prefer to use a variety of pre-mixed colors from tubes or bottles.

Alla Prima (Wet-on-Wet)

Alla Prima (wet on wet) is an approach that involves applying large amounts of wet pigment onto the canvas surface quickly before any drying occurs. This process allows you to mix paint and develop colors directly on the canvas.

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Brush Techniques

Using a paintbrush with acrylics is the most traditional method of painting. But within this toolset, there are an almost infinite number of paintbrush techniques you can use in your painting. Paint brushes come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials, so the brushes you choose will also impact the results of the painting technique you use.

Dry Brushing: Dry brushing with acrylic paint is a method that involves adding a small amount of paint to the brush, but removing any excess. When you dry brush on canvas, it goes on in thin layers, sometimes transparent, that show the brush strokes.
Wet Brush on Dry Canvas: This is probably the most traditional paint brush technique. Wet your brush with water before dipping it in your paint, and use as much paint as you like on the brush.
Wet-on-Wet: As mentioned in the color mixing section, wet on wet or alla prima involves applying a wet brush with paint to wet paint on the canvas.
Stippling: Stippling (or pointillism) is a method that uses paint on the very tip of the brush (usually a pointed or round brush) and is lightly dabbed on the canvas in repetition to create a series of dots or circles.

Impasto

This is a method of painting in which you can use a palette knife to apply paint, creating texture and an impression of dimension. With the impasto technique, you apply with thick, concentrated paint in the form of dabs and globs, rather than strokes like you would with a paintbrush. You would most likely use a heavy body paint or mix a heavy gel medium with your paint to thicken it so it maintains the texture you create with the palette knife until it dries.

Glazing

Glazing is a painting technique used to add subtle, translucent color to a painting. By mixing a small amount of glazing medium with your acrylic paint color, you can increase the transparency of the paint without losing the fluid consistency. While you can thin your acrylic paints a bit with water, water causes the paint particles to separate so it loses the smooth consistency. Water-thinned paint works well for washes of color in which you don’t require a lot of control, but if you want more precise thinning of your paint, use a glazing medium.

Once the glaze is mixed, you can begin adding the more translucent color to the areas of your painting that you wish to enhance. It works great for improving shading in an area that the paint is already dry so the paints no longer blend, or adding tone to an area that’s already dry.

Acrylic Pouring

This is a great way to create abstract art, especially if you are just getting started and enjoy getting a little messy. You can choose any colors you want, but it’s important that they are all the same type of paint and medium. To begin, mix your acrylic paints and pouring medium (according to the instructions on the pouring medium) in a container. Disposable plastic cups work just fine for this.

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You can begin pouring and dripping various lines onto the canvas, tilting the canvas gently to allow the paints to flow and cover the surface. You might use other tools to add movement to the swirls of paint, such as a toothpick, or blow dryer.

Additional Techniques

In addition to all the common tools and acrylic painting techniques mentioned above, there are many more ways to move paint around on canvas. Stenciling and stamping can be used for both painting and printing techniques as well as mixed media work, producing instant prints onto your canvas! Paper shop towels are durable and highly absorbent. Not only are they great for cleaning up messes, a damp towel can be used to spread acrylic paint on the canvas in abstract ways. Drips and splatters using thinned acrylic paints add interest and movement. If painting upright using an easel, allow thinned paint to drip and run while you are working with it. This can add an ethereal and abstract feel even if you are working on something figurative.

Step-by-Step Still Life Acrylic Painting

Here’s a simple step-by-step project to get you started with acrylic painting:

Materials:

24 cm x 18 cm pre-primed canvas
Size 6 Isabey Isacryl Acrylic brush - filbert
Size 5 Kolinsky Sable from Rosemary & Co - round - (any small round will be fine)
Paints:
- Artist quality Titanium White
- Burnt Umber
- Raw Umber
- Cadmium Red Light
- Cadmium Red Medium
- Cadmium Yellow Light
- Permanent Alizarin Crimson - Winsor & Newton Artist Acrylic
- Green Gold
- Phthalo Blue (Red Shade)
3B pencil
Kitchen roll
A jam jar for cleaning brush
Small dipper for diluting paint

Steps:

Apply a colored ground: For this painting, you want to have a subtle play between the two complementary colors, red and green. Because red is the main color of the cherry you wanted to put it on a cooler base, so using Raw umber and white achieves this effect.
Sketch the Image: Using a 3B pencil sketch out the image to work from. Don’t worry if it isn’t completely accurate it is just a guide to get you started.
Establish the Darkest Areas: Using Burnt Umber & Titanium White establish the darkest area of the picture.

Varnishing and Isolation Coat

Once you’re satisfied with your creation, you’ll need to seal it for safe keeping. Acrylic paints are fairly durable and water-resistant once they are fully cured, but it’s still important to add a varnish to protect it from light and dust.

Using a spray varnish: This is the easiest way to apply varnish because you can simply spray it on evenly over your painting in several passes until you’ve covered all areas.
Using a brush varnish: If spraying isn’t an option, like if you are working inside or your painting is highly textured, I recommend brushing on varnish instead.

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