Acrylic Painting Tips

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Acrylic Painting Tips
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THE MEDIUM-

• All acrylics are made from coloured pigments
  mixed with synthetic resin which acts as the
  binder and adhesive. Once dry acrylic colours
  form a tough plastic coating which is almost
  indestructible.

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Acrylic Paint

• Change your rinse water often to keep colours
  pure and clean
• Wash brushes with cool water, not hot

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Acrylic Paint

• Paint left to dry on clothing or in brushes
  becomes permanent wash while wet!
• If you get paint on your clothes, rinse it out
  with cold water

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Acrylic Paint

• Blend colours together on the painting surface
  while wet to achieve gradual changes in
  value/tone
• If you want an area to be well blended, its a
  good idea to pre-mix the colours you will need so
  you can apply them more quickly and be able to
  blend while still wet. For example, if you want
  to blend a red into a yellow, pre-mix a couple in
  between colours this way, not all your blending
  is done on the painting surface, allowing you to
  work quicker

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Acrylic Paint

• Acrylic dries slightly darker than it looks when
  wet
• If an area doesnt work out, let it dry and
  simply paint over it again it is very
  forgiving!

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• Opaque from the tube- easy to paint one colour
  over another, even a light colour over another
  one only takes one coat
• Translucent when one adds water- bold or subtle
  transparent washes. Does not behave as
  watercolour washes are unsolvable so once dry
  cannot be removed. This allows you to add one
  transparent colour over another without
  disturbing the colour underneath. They also dry
  to a rather flat finish, the more water you use
  the less shiny the final work.
• Can be applied thickly to add texture. Mediums
  can be used to make this even thicker.

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• Acrylics are adhesive which works well with
  collage.

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Surfaces

• Painting surfaces- wide range- canvas, board,
  cardboard, paper also, plastic, metal, formica
  and other surfaces. All surfaces should be primed
  to seal the surface and provide a key for the
  paint to adhere to. It will not adhere to an oily
  or waxy surface so do not use it to paint over an
  old oil painting. Acrylic gesso or acrylic primer
  provides a good white surface. To retain the
  colour of the canvas board, card or paper seal
  the surface with acrylic gloss or matt medium.
• Bought surfaces- ready primed for acrylic use
  including, stretched canvas, boards, and canvas
  covered boards as well as special papers which
  have a texture similar to canvas.-limited range
  of sizes and shapes
• Inexpensive alternatives- hardboard, masonite,
  cardboard, thick paper- prime with two coats.

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Layering

• Most effective way to adjust colours , tones and
  composition by overlaying paint rather than
  manipulating wet paint on canvas as with oils.

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• ACCESSORIES AND ADDITIVES-
• Palettes-use white plastic palettes or flat
  plastic or glass sheets, not wooden palettes.
  Keep paint moist while you work with an
  occasional spray of water.
• Styrofoam trays with moistened paper towels- can
  keep paint moist on a limited budget- cover with
  tinfoil
• Paint- tube paint generally thicker than that in
  jars.
• Mediums-gloss medium- allows the paint to become
  transparent with a shinier result. Often used
  when one colour needs to be seen underneath. Matt
  is the same but leaves it with a nonreflecting
  surface.
• Gel Medium and Texture paste- used to make it
  thicker, allowing for texturizing with a brush,
  knife or other tools. You can also make your own
  special textures by adding sand sawdust or other
  substances.
• Retarder- slows down drying time, used with thick
  paint to allow time for texturizing.

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Glazing
Building up layers of transparent colours. Paints
can be thinned with water (dull) or acrylic
mediums (slight to high gloss
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Layering

• The first step should be an underpainting.
• Underpaintings should not be detailed.
• This first layer of paint covers the gesso
  (primer) and prevents white areas. It can also
  add a different tint to layers on top of it. It
  can be one colour for the entire painting, or
  different colours for different areas.

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Layering, cont

• Sometimes painters allow portions of the
  underpainting to show through, forming what looks
  like an outline.

Allow successive layers to dry before building on
top so the colours dont become muddy add glaze
layers on dry paint to change tone of an area
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Painting Order

• Work from background to middle ground to
  foreground!
• For example, in the example shown here, sky
  first, then blue hills, brown hills, white hills,
  then trees.
• Also consider that dark colours layer over light
  colours more easily than light over dark.

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WASHES

• Three uses you want your picture to look like a
  watercolour, or you want to use it as a starting
  place for your picture, or you want to use it as
  an overlaid colour. The latter is known as
  glazing and change the underlying colour without
  obliterating it. Some paints are strong and do
  not work well as glazes, such as phythalo blue
  and alizarin crimson. Remember water produces
  matt finish and medium a gloss finish.

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Brushstrokes

• impasto - A thick or lumpy application of paint,
  or deep brush marks (brushstrokes), as
  distinguished from a flat, smooth paint surface.
  (pr. im-PAHS-toh)
• May be thinned with water or a medium to get
  watercolour like effect
• Scumbling/drybrushing can be used on top of
  completely dry areas to add soft, broken,
  transparent areas of colour good for highlights
  for example
• Broad brushstrokes of thinned paint are good for
  underpainting and blocking in large areas of
  colour. Smaller brushstrokes with thicker paint
  are useful for adding details
• Build up from thin to thick (for the most part)

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TEXTURE

• Dont over do it- it can take away from the
  picture, be selective
• Model with a knife, scratch into with a brush
  handle (show layer underneath), imprint with
  another material such as tinfoil combing dab
  with your finger dab from the tube stipple with
  the flat of a knife mix with sawdust , sand,
  rocksalt, rice, eggshells etc. have candlewax
  below, paint over such things as a doiley
  (stencil), paint over applied fabric.

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1. Use a ground

• There are many benefits to working on a ground.
  One of these is increased painting or drawing
  speed. A ground covers a painting or drawing
  surface from the outset. It can act as mid-tone,
  with only black and white used to apply dark and
  light areas (as in the examples below) or be left
  partially visible in the final work. This results
  in an artwork that is much faster to complete

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2. Incorporate mixed media /patterned surfaces /
textural elements

• As with using a ground, patterned, decorative or
  textural items can cover areas of an artwork
  quickly. Although this strategy should be used
  with care, selecting only materials which support
  or enhance your project (usually with reference
  to a relevant artist model) this can be a great
  way to speed up your project and introduce
  creative use of mixed media.

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Paint things in the right order - background
areas first

• In almost all cases, the background should be
  completed first, followed by the middle-ground,
  ending with the foreground. This is easily
  understood when considering a tree in front of a
  cloudy sky. If you make the mistake of painting
  the tree first, the sky has to be meticulously
  painted around every leaf and branch an
  irritating task that takes hours (and ends up
  looking a little shabby). Painting the sky first,
  however, means that a large brush can quickly be
  used to paint the sky, with the tree then easily
  added over the top. Painting in the correct order
  also results in a painting that has layers (which
  gives it a richness and lustre, as with using a
  ground).

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USE masking tape to create straight edges

• Some students are concerned that it might be
  necessary to prove that a straight line can be
  painted by hand. This is not the case. Your
  control of a paint brush can be ascertained
  immediately by looking at the remainder of your
  painting. Masking tape creates straight edges in
  seconds. Once mastered, this trick can save you
  hours and make your paintings sharper, cleaner
  and more professional in the process. If you
  havent used masking tape before, buy some now!

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OMIT PARTS OF A SCENE

• Deliberately picking out certain parts of a scene
  to draw has a strong impact on the final work and
  must be used with care to ensure that the
  resulting image supports the ideas explored in
  your project. As with the previous option, this
  allows you to demonstrate strong observational
  drawing skills, while saving time by omitting
  part of the scene.

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Include photographs
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Use a bigger brush

• There is something surprisingly liberating about
  painting with a bigger brush especially if you
  have previously worked at a microscopic scale,
  picking out detail the size of a pin prick. You
  will soon discover that it is just as easy to
  achieve clean edges with a larger brush and that
  an unexpected level of detail can be achieved.
  Most enjoy picking up a larger brush even if
  this just becomes a way for creating grounds and
  applying background layers

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Be more gestural

• Instead of artwork being a laborious process that
  grinds away for days, images can be created
  quickly, using rich, expressive mark-making.
  Those who have only produced realist, tightly
  controlled drawings usually take some time to
  adapt to this approach and not all students find
  it easy selection of the right drawing tools and
  mediums can help. Charcoal, chunky 5mm wide
  graphite leads, Indian ink, big brushes and paint
  applied with pieces of card all lend themselves
  to gestural mark-making