Whether you are using traditional acrylic paint or modern acrylic paint, there are pros and cons when compared with other paint mediums.
FIVE WAYS TO USE ACRYLIC PAINT
Painting with acrylics is an accessible technique available to all budgets and easy to learn. Acrylic paint features on every art student’s supplies list. As it can be used in many different ways, acrylic allows for experimentation and creativity. Budding artists can express their creativity, while more confirmed artists can make the most of the multiple techniques offered by acrylic paint in their works. Its main advantage? It is a water-based paint that can be thinned. The tools and surfaces used can be cleaned easily, on condition of doing it quickly before the paint dries. Most of the time acrylic paint comes in tubes or bottles.
Now that you’re all set and have your first colors, how will you use them? This article offers you a guide to 5 techniques to try out with acrylic paint.
THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START PAINTING WITH ACRYLIC
What surfaces can acrylic paint be used on?
First of all, let’s look at the materials that can be used with acrylic paint. The advantage of this paint is that it adapts to all surfaces. It covers canvas, fabric, paper, glass, plastic, metal, concrete, wood, transparent surfaces and so on.
While in theory acrylic paint works on all surfaces, you can also prime your surfaces or apply a base coat of white acrylic paint for better adhesion. It’s also a way of creating effects by playing with the textures present on the surface.
If you’re painting on canvas, apply a base coat of white or color paint beforehand all over the canvas. It will then be smoother and ready to use with a more homogenous surface.
Some key technical terms
A color solid or area block is a tinted area of one color. You can for example have a large blue color solid to depict the sky.
A wash is a thin coat of diluted color and a technique that is widely used in watercolor. You can re-create the effect by diluting the acrylic paint with a larger amount of water.
Can acrylic paint be used on a drawing pad?
Drawing pads are a practical way of carrying your work around or for working outside. Whether at home or in a studio, they allow you to create notebooks of your work. If you’re painting on paper, we recommend a thick, heavy paper with a high GSM as the surface must be able to absorb water without being damaged. The Caran d’Ache 220 GSM (220 g/m2) drawing pads are perfectly adapted to acrylic paint. Unlike oil paint, acrylic paint dries quickly so you can take your pad with you and sketch what you see around you with your paintbrushes and colors.
Thanks to this short drying time and its ease-of-use, acrylic paint is the ally of every art student who wishes to perfect their painting techniques.
We can now look at the different techniques used with acrylic paint.
FIVE TECHNIQUES TO TRY OUT WITH ACRYLIC PAINT
1. Mixing different colors of acrylic paint
You can mix your acrylic paints directly on your palette, which allows you to create your own colors or to personnalize nuances to match your work.
For beginners, getting primary colours is a good way to start using acrylic paint. With just 3 colors – magenta red , cyan blue and yellow – it is possible to experiment. We also recommend adding white and black to your palette to vary the color values.
Some key technical terms
The value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. By varying the amount of white you can for example get a dark or pale green. A monochrome painting using only one colour can therefore contain different values of that color.
You can then purchase other colours to make the most of the quality of the pigments selected by the manufacturer. It should be noted that the higher the concentration of pigment, the better value the paint is. The pigments found in Caran d’Ache’s acrylic paint guarantee bright colours and are light resistant. The paint is available in 250 mL tubes. While primary colours are of course available, a wide range of hues completes our catalogue. Altogether you will find 30 different ones.
What is acrylic paint?
Acrylic paint is paint made of pigment that’s suspended in acrylic emulation. It is water-soluble and fast-drying and becomes water-resistant once dry.
Acrylic paint is extremely versatile. Dependant on how much the paint is diluted with water, or modified with acrylic gels, mediums or pastes, a finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolour, gouache or an oil painting. It can also have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media.
What makes acrylic paint different?
Before the 19th century, artists mixed their own paints. This allowed them to achieve their desired colour and thickness, and to control the use of fillers, if any. With acrylic, hand mixing is generally not practical. This is because of fast drying time and other technical issues, such as the necessity to combine several polymers, as well as surfactants, plasticizers, demoamers and stabilisers. Instead, artists purchase acrylic paint ready to go, which can be modified using acrylic mediums or water.
The range of acrylic mediums is also greater than watercolour and oil. Acrylics have the ability to bond to many different surfaces, and mediums can be used to modify its binding characteristics. Acrylics can be used on paper, canvas and a range of other materials, including hobby models like trains, cars and houses.
Traditional vs modern acrylic paint
Despite acrylic paint being relatively new in the art world, there is still what’s referred to as ‘traditional’ acrylic paint and ‘modern’ acrylic paint. Traditional acrylic paints are the fast-drying paints that have been around for the last five decades and are made from brands such as Liquitex, Winsor and Newton, Golden and Grumbacher. Modern acrylic paints do not dry as quickly and can be reactivated after drying, and are made from brands such as Golden and Chroma.
Toxicity levels
Advantages: acrylic paints are water-based, which means they can be thinned with just water (no toxic spirits are required). In addition, wet paint can be cleaned off of brushes using just soap and water.
Disadvantages: acrylic paints can contain toxins within their pigments, just like some oil paints do. Additional toxins can be found in acrylics that use ‘retarder’ to slow down the drying time.
Drying time
Advantages: traditional acrylic paints dry rapidly, so there is no need to wait between painting sessions for layers to dry. Paintings are dry enough to ship safely within a day or so.
Disadvantages: because acrylic paints dry quickly they cannot be easily blended to create the ‘wet in wet’ technique that is popular with oil paints. For this reason, a finished acrylic painting can look harsh compared to a finished oil painting.
Reactivation
Advantages: unlike watercolors (another water-based paint), once traditional acrylics are dry they are on the support to stay. This makes painting new layers on top of previous ones simpler.
Disadvantages: once the paint is dry, it cannot be removed or altered.
Durability
Advantages: acrylic paints have been proven to be more flexible than oil paints. There is no need to follow fat over lean rules with acrylics so that they won’t crack.
Disadvantages: we’ve only had 50 years of acrylic paints so we can’t really comment as to how long they’ll hold up for.
