Getting into acrylic painting.

#1

So Ive finally decided to get into acrylic painting.Im about to buy the DVD “Painting the Adult Male Head:Monochromatic” and recently just bought some supplies(paints,brushes,etc) .If anyone has any tips for someone starting out in painting with acrylics that would be great.Thanks.

#2

Buy some acrylic retarder and put a tiny little bit in the paint on your pallet. A tiny drop is enough to keep your paint from drying too quickly. Not too much or it gets thin and runny.

And coat your board / canvas with a layer of something kind of neutral before you start. If you don’t coat it, the first strokes you put down will spread funny, and if you coat it with white, the first strokes you put down will actually be brighter than they look, throwing off your later composition.

Wash your brushes very well or they’ll turn to plastic after the first painting session.

Paint in big shapes first, until you’re happy with the overall composition, then add detail later. Almost nothing your paint early on will remain fully exposed, so don’t start with meticulous eyes and hairs right away.

#3

In conjunction with the retarder, you can also speed up the process with a hair-dryer. We would lay down glazes pretty quick with this to acheive the same effect that oil paints get naturally, but without waiting for 3 days per glaze.

Acrylics are fun, but I’d start off with some brushes you don’t mind losing. Cause no matter how careful you are, you’re going to ruin a few starting off.

-Lu

#4

The way i work with acrylics is pretty similar to oil, have a background color, use a ground color for your subject, put down the basic shapes. Then start off with highlights and shadows by glazing them, just mix the acrylics with water, if u feel like too diluted, try using medium. Then just keep on working layers by layers. The advantage of using acrylics over oil is its dry fast, and u can totaly cover the underlayer with another color, but be careful not to build your layer too thick , cuz it might be problematic at the end. And always have 2 pots of water near, one for dirty brushes , so that they dont dry out, they other one is for acutally painting, and it should remain as clean as possible. Dont be scare to rub your painting with clothes for a glaze effect or just to take off the paint. Dont be scare to use the pallette knifes as a brush.

#5

Remember to work in a well-aired space. Acrylics don’t smell much, but they’re still poisonous.

#6

Before getting to 3D (for people to merge into my paintings ;o) ) i started (for monney reason with simple dispersion. But oh gosh there was no retarder for that! so it was real hard having any nice color ranges done.
Oil paint was far the best way to get the “Renaissance florentine” finish i was looking for.
In these days (the early 70’s) acrylic was on it’s start and was mostly used by abstract painters (cutting edges, pure colors).
Within the 90’s i came to see very beautiful things done with acrylic, post surealistic like and brillant stuff really greatly detailed and with marvelous ranges (definitely a matter of retarder!).
I wish you great times of creativity and lots of satisfactory experiences with painting canvas. But as it has been said before take care of some products, though chrom yellow and cadmium red have been forbidden, there are still some nasty esters floating around when using “real paint”…

#7

it can be tempting to try to use it thick like oil paint, as it sort of seems to be the same consistency, but it doest really blend like oils. build stuff up out of lots of washes, basically if you think of it like watercolors but with the benefit of being able to be opaque if you want it to be opaque, such as to paint over a little mistake, or oils using glazes that just dry a lot faster, its ok. if you try to get all van gogh acrylics dont really work for me…

but really once you are using plastic why not just use painter… hehe…

#8

take your time if you are just starting out with acrylic painting… take a slow steady approach to whatever you are painting. be sure to keep your supplies well organised while painting, give yourelf as much space as possible. Make an effort to keep your brushes clean while painting, and take a mathematical approach while mixing colours. ( ex. 1part green 3 parts red etc.) because it is so frustrating to run out of a mixed colour and not being able to get it back exactly the way you want it.

Bottom line.  if you take a well organised relaxed prepared stragegy without even puttin a stroke down your paintings are sure to turn out better.  So be organised cause painting can get messy and sloppy! unless u want messy and sloppy ala Jackson Pollock :P

goodluck

#9

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