

The chief characteristic that sets pricer acrylics from cheaper ones is their ‘lightfastness’, or durability under light. This is the frustrating reality of artmaking: it asks for investment not just in time but in money, too. How much should I expect to spend on acrylic paint?īeginners are often taken aback by the cost of painting materials, be that paint, brushes, canvases or other supports. Far better you rely on a limited range and develop your colour-mixing skills. While this range of colour might look enticing, the choice is likely to be a little bit overwhelming. Newbies, beware: there are many so-called ‘beginner’s sets’ that contain as many as 24 different colours. That’s why most acrylic paints sets from prominent brands cover this spectrum of colours.

In reality, most painters like to also have a green, at least one earth tone and black in their palette. From these four colours you can, in principle, mix all others. On the assumption that you’re not working monochromatically, you should aim to have, at the very least, all three primaries (red, blue and yellow) and white in your palette. READ NEXT: The best binoculars to buy How many colours should I start with? And if you want to prolong those pesky drying times? Invest in some retarder gel. If you want it to paint in translucent layers (‘glazes’), you can buy matt or gloss medium gel that renders the paint less opaque. If you want to create particularly textured (or ‘impasto’) paintings, there are texture gels that thicken your paint. You can also choose from a wide selection of extra media that can be mixed into your colours. We’ve included all three types in our round-up. There are heavy-body acrylics which are more butter-like, which are well-suited for textured paintings fluid acrylics, on the other hand, have a cream-like consistency that doesn’t retain any brushwork. It can be thinned easily with water - although only to an approximate 50/50 mix, after which the polymers break down and it starts to bead on whatever substrate you’re using. Standard acrylic paints have a consistency that’s just a little runnier than toothpaste. We’ll go into pigment in the following section. Where they differ is in their consistency and the levels of pigment they contain. The chemical properties of acrylic are much of a muchness from brand to brand. READ NEXT: The best die-cutting machines to buy Are there different types of acrylic paint? Ultimately, there are no hard-and-fast rules: how acrylic’s properties play out in your painting is completely down to you. Portraits who make use of subtle gradations in their paintwork are best sticking to oils those creating flat, graphic, Pop-style work will almost definitely fare better with acrylics. Oil paint, by contrast, might only become touch-dry in 24 to 48 hours. Thinly applied acrylic can dry in little more than a minute, while even thick layers of paint will dry in the space of an hour. The other chief difference to oil paint is acrylic’s significantly faster drying time. This makes acrylic paint safe for kids, although make sure you dress them up in overalls: it’s nigh-on impossible to remove from fabric once dry.īest paint brush 2021: Our favourite brushes for big jobs, edging and cutting in from just £6

That simply means that acrylic paint is water-based, which has all sorts of advantages: you don’t have to work with odorous substances like turpentine, which is not only toxic but a pain to dispose of.
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How to choose the best acrylic paint for you What is the difference between oil and acrylic paint?Īt the molecular level, oil is made up pigments suspended in an oil-based binder, while the pigments in acrylic paint are suspended in a polymer binder. Best fluid acrylic paints: Golden Principal Fluid Acrylics.
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Acrylics with a professional degree: Golden Heavy Body.Best all-round acrylic paint: Winsor & Newton Galeria.Happy painting! Best acrylic paint: At a glance That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you pick out the perfect acrylic paint, followed by our pick of the best acrylic paints available to buy. Acrylic’s tough, durable plasticity also makes it a perfect material to be used in other crafts: it can be painted on to wood, ceramic, glass, metal and pretty much any material with a clean surface.īut as with pretty much every art material on the market, there are many different choices of acrylic paint out there, at a wide range of prices. And while acrylic is often dismissed as a distinctly amateurish medium, its properties have a whole host of advantages that can be utilised by both amateur and professional artists. While oil paints have been used by artists for many hundreds of years, acrylics are the new kids on the block, having only been mass-manufactured since the 1950s.
