How To Paint With Acrylic Paint | Beginner Guide Step by Step

 New to painting with Acrylics?

You're going to need all the acrylic painting lessons and tips and tricks you can get. When it comes to painting with acrylics, everyone can learn to do it effectively. Acrylics take understanding and creative use for making mesmerizing art pieces.

In this article, we're going to make sure that you understand how acrylic painting is better than painting with other types of colors as well as the things you're going to need as a beginner and a step by step guide of how to start acrylic painting and what tips and tricks you need to know for making amazing artworks.

What is Acrylic Paint?

Acrylic paint is a type of quick-dry paint that is made from plastic polymer. It is one of the most commonly used types of paints because of the variety of colors and ease of use. You must've seen acrylics being used from school and college levels to professional artists who prefer Acrylics over other types of paints because of the accessibility and the advantages.

How is Acrylic painting better for beginners?

We mentioned the term "advantages" in the previous paragraph, well, we knew what we were saying. Acrylic painting is better for beginners and professionals alike because of several reasons. Here are some of those reasons.

Painting Surface

The great thing about using acrylic paints is the variety of painting surfaces they can be used on. When it comes to other types of paints like watercolors or oil paints, they don't offer the same kind of freedom in terms of painting surfaces. Acrylic painting can be easily done on paper, canvas, wooden surfaces, and cloths however, one thing that must be kept under notice is that you make sure the surface is non-porous and if it is porous, use some sealer before you use acrylics. This freedom that Acrylic paints offer to beginners with limited resources is what makes them better.

Quick-dry Nature

One of the benefits of using acrylic paints is the quick-dry nature of these paints. This helps in multi-layer paintings without any disturbance to the lower layer. To do this, you're going to lay down a layer of acrylic and due to its quick-dry nature, you're going to be able to lay another layer of different paint on that dry layer without mixing the colors.

Variety of Altering Mediums

Not happy enough with the quick-dry nature of these paints, well, you can always use altering mediums. With the help of acrylic mediums, you can change the nature of the acrylic, you can elongate the drying time, and you can change the viscosity of the paint as well. This helps especially when you want to change the acrylic look or you want to work on mixing different colors on canvas before the color dries and becomes water-resistant.

Along with these, there are many other advantages as well, a few of which we're going to talk about in the comparison between watercolors, oil paints, and acrylic paints and which ones beginners should be using.

Comparison with Watercolors and Oil Paints

Artists who use watercolors and oil paints realize that they aren't as changeable and adaptable to different painting methods and techniques. However, let's compare acrylics with watercolors and oil paints just to give you an idea of how beginners would benefit using acrylic paints.

• Acrylic Paints & Watercolors - In comparison, acrylic paints give the artist more freedom and advantages because of the variety of mediums available for the acrylic paints. You can change the nature of the paint without having to change the type of paint while using acrylics whereas watercolors only give a specific effect to paintings.

• Acrylic Paints & Oil Paints - When it comes to comparing acrylic paints and oil paints, they're actually more similar than you would think. The various colors are similar in appearance and in order to get a mixed color single layer painting effect like in wet oil paints, you can use acrylic mediums for making the drying time longer in acrylic paints. This way you get all the benefits of oil painting without oil dripping down the painting which makes acrylic paints superior to oil paints in usage.

Tools You Need For Acrylic Painting

In order to become a professional at acrylic painting, first, you need to learn the basics of acrylic painting. Here is a list of tools and what they're used for in an acrylic painting.

3H/4H Pencil - You're going to be using these pencils in order to create a sketch of the painting that you're looking to create before applying acrylics directly on the canvas.

Palette - Every artist needs a palette to work with. If you're beginning with acrylic paint, you're still going to need a palette along with other essential tools.

Palette Knife - This tool is a long thin strip of metal that will be used while mixing and applying colors on the canvas, usually at the base of the painting.

Pointed Brush - This tool is the major component of painting. This is your key to success. Using this pointed round brush you're going to apply the acrylics to make your art lively and beautiful.

Canvas/Surface - Obviously in order to paint you're going to require a surface. As we talked about earlier, finding a surface isn't going to be difficult as long as porous surfaces are sealed before painting on them.

Acrylic Paints - These are your true assets in acrylic painting. You need to have tubes, jars or bottles of acrylic paints of the right colors in order to be able to accurately project your thoughts into your paintings. From white to black and all the oranges, blues, reds as well as the yellows greens and violets in between, you're going to need in order to mix and make the right shades.

There are other materials as well, such as paper towels along with acrylic mediums and whatnot but they're optional and depend upon the artist so you can get them if you feel like it.