Acrylic Painting For Beginners: A Step-By-Step Guide
Acrylic paint is one of the best paints that you can use as a beginner. It’s not only incredibly versatile, but it’s water-based.
This means that you can thin and mix the paint to your hearts content, and it’s easy to clean! This make acrylic paint the perfect choice for beginners.
Now before you plough ahead and start buying what you feel you need, I’m going to take you through the supplies and tools all beginners need to get into acrylic painting.
Landscape painting showing the texture that can be achieved with beginner’s acrylic paints | Emily Nickless
How Is Acrylic Paint Different From Oil And Watercolour?
The primary differences between acrylic and oil paints are the water-based, quick drying qualities of acrylic paint.
As I paint between a full time job, I often find I don’t have too much time to work on a piece. Acrylic is so quick drying that it makes it so much easier and quicker to paint with. You don’t need to leave my canvasses out to dry for very long so that’s a definite plus if you’re looking to start creating artwork as a beginner with limited time.
Also, because the drying time is much quicker, you can quickly apply layers of paint to your canvas or board without it running into other colours.
What Supplies Do I Need To Begin Painting?
Before we head into the acrylic painting techniques for beginners, I want to take you through the equipment you’ll need to get started.
Acrylic Painting Supplies: Summary
Let’s start with the acrylic paint itself.
The first thing you need to think about is making sure that you have a variety of colours. As you’re just starting out, you’ll find that a lot of time will be spent on experimenting with mixing colours and tones to create the perfect colours.
Rather than splashing all your cash on a load of large individual tubes, I recommend that you buy a variety of smaller 20ml tubes.
I use both the Reeves (for beginners) and Winsor & Newton (professional) paints and have 2 different sets.
It’s been useful having these smaller tubes because I often paint smaller A5 landscapes and don’t use too much paint for each piece.
Although the Winsor & Newton paints are quite expensive, they go a very long way so it may be worth the investment once you’ve established what it is you’re going to be painting.
Next you’ll need your brushes.
Again, the best thing to do is to buy a set of brushes in a variety of shapes and sizes. There are so many YouTube videos and blogs that recommend the right size brush for a particular type of painting or detail, but I don’t think this is the best way to approach it.
I often find myself using a massive brush for my small A5 landscape paintings of the UK because it suits my style. Whereas you may find that you want to use a smaller, more pointed brush for my larger paintings to ensure you can capture every detail.
With this in mind, I bought a good set from Amazon for a decent price that didn’t break the bank, perfect for beginners!
Now, what will you be painting on?
The most popular painting surface choices are canvas, canvas board and paper.
I personally love the texture of a canvas. It’s also great to be able to move the canvas around as you work. The sturdiness of a canvas it makes it easy to manoeuvre.
Paper is a tough one because I think this comes down to style.
You can get some really good quality acrylic paper which holds well, but in my experience, I still struggle because I like to really layer on the paint and often use water which can rip the paper. You should be fine if you’re a bit lighter with the water and paint combination, though.
Canvas board is a personal favourite of mine. This is because it holds really well and doesn’t take up a lot of storage space. You can get the same effect with a textured canvas board as you can with canvas so that’s a plus. You’ll find that buying multiple boards in bulk is also less expensive than canvas so it's perfect for beginners to acrylic painting.
For a water pot, I use just an old jam jar so that one’s easy. Although a none-spill one is always a good option, particularly if you have kids or manic beagles roaming around…
And finally, KITCHEN ROLL!
It’s an absolute godsend. You’ll find many professional artists recommend using cloth rags for specific artists' rags, but I am yet to find anything more effective than Kitchen Roll. I feel like you can control the water levels on the tip of the brush better, and of course, it’s cheaper and can be bought as part of the weekly shop!
How To Choose The Right Acrylic Paint
Quality
You’ll find that there are two broad categories for acrylic paints: student and artist.
They’re categorised based on the quality of the paint.
Student grade paint, so for me that would be my Reeves paint, has a lower ratio of single pigment colours. They also have more additives in them which isn’t great. The lower number of pigments does mean that they can turn murky and muddy as you mix your colours.
Pigments are insoluble particules that hold the colour within the paint. They produce the UV-resistant quality of some higher quality paints and create the texture of the paint.
We all remember how easy it was to mix the colour brown back in school … that would be why!
Single-pigment colours on the other hand, make your mixed colours more clear. However, they can be more complex to use because you need to understand colours and the colour wheel much more. They often dry differently to the colour they are when wet and can even have a different texture.
Whereas the additives within student-quality paint means it often dries to a more uniform texture and finish, meaning you don’t need to worry about the finish variations.
So you can see why a deeper knowledge and understanding of technical painting is required to create the perfect painting using higher quality paint.
But again, it’s entirely up to you depending on your budget and what you’re comfortable with.
Colour Palette
Once you’ve decided which quality is best for you, you now need to consider the range of colours you’ll purchase.
I’ve already mentioned paint sets as this is where I suggest you start. The colours have been selected by the manufacturer in a way that gives the pack either the most variety, or makes sure they all work together to create a seamless colour palette.
Most acrylic painting sets for beginners will include the standard primary colours, one or two secondary colours and some more neutral shades as well as black and white.
Of course, it goes without saying that you could simply use the primary colours (red, blue, yellow and green) along with black and white to create any colour you could wish for. However, this is probably for the more advanced artists as a restricted palette can be quite daunting if you haven’t yet found your feet.
If you do choose to select your own individual colours, it’s always best to opt for 2-3 variations of the primary colours with a black or white. This will give you the most choice without having to mix too many colours yourself.
How To Choose The Right Paintbrush
Now let’s take a more detailed look at the types of paintbrushes beginners can use for acrylic paintings.
There is two types of hair used for acrylic paint brushes: natural and synthetic.
Of course, natural paint brushes are the most expensive but they’re great if you use heavy-bodied acrylic paints and like to use plenty of paint on a canvas. They also take a little more care than synthetic brushes but are better for the environment.
Synthetic fibres are more resilient than natural hair acrylic paint brushes so tend to be the best acrylic paint brushes for beginners. They can withstand more wear and tear so are also more financially viable, particularly if you don’t paint that often, or don’t have a proper storage spot for your acrylic paint brushes.
One of the major causes of distruction though, is improper cleaning (which I’m completely guilty of so I need to take my own advice!)
You should thoroughly clean your brushes after each session. Don’t leave them tip-down in the mucky water because this will really damage the shape, rendering your acrylic brushes useless.
You only need to gently clean the bristles with soap and luke-warm water before the paint dries and leave lying horizontally to dry.
Avoid buying really cheap brushes because they don’t hold their shape well and the bristles can fall out into your painting which can ruin your work (and they’re a pain to get out!).
Which Palette Should I Use For Acrylic Painting?
Now let’s look at the type of palette that you need to be able to fluently mix your acrylic paint.
You’re after a non-stick surface.
The size of the palette is, not only down to personal preference, but also the size of painting. If you need to mix a large amount of each colour, then you’ll require a larger palette.
However, you may be painting a smaller piece that needs less paint. In this case you’ll require a smaller palette.
Smaller palettes are also great for travelling.
Overall, it depends on the detail.
A more detailed piece that requires more colours will require more space for mixing.
Additional Tips For Acrylic Painting Beginners
These are from my own experience:
Don’t compare your work too closely to others.
Your style is what makes you, you. And everyone has to start somewhere. You may be looking at a painting from an artist with professional training who has been painting for years. It’s unlikely that you’ll start at that level so go easy on yourself.
When you get stuck, turn it upside down.
You may find that at times, no matter how much you work on a particular detail, it’s just not working how you want it to. When this is the case, it may be because you’re focussing too much on trying to paint that particular object and make it look how you believe it should.
However, if you’re working from a reference, I recommend turning both the reference and the canvas upside down. I’ve found that when I do this, I can focus more on the forms and colour
Make notes along the way.
I appreciate this may trigger a little GCSE PTSD but it’s really useful to note down how you made the colours you’ve used. It’s great to have a point of reference if you want to make those colours again before it becomes muscle memory.
The more you practice, the more you’ll settle into using acrylic paints.
The important thing to remember is that there are actually no hard and fast rules.
I hope this acrylic painting guide is packed full with enough acrylic painting techniques for beginners to get you started and give you a little more confidence to get creative!
If you have any other tips or any questions about my step by step guide to acrylic painting for beginners, make sure to comment below and I’ll answer to the best of my ability!