Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Techniques & Supplies

See essential acrylic painting techniques: painting with palette knives, choosing acrylic colors, using a palette knife, mediums that can be added to the acrylic paint, acrylic varnishes, painting details, and much more. Demo by Teaching Artist Alex Rowe.

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Clara Lieu was an Adjunct Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design from 2007-2020. Her artwork has been exhibited at the International Print Center NY, the Currier Museum, Childs Gallery, the Davis Museum, and more. Lieu received an artist fellowship from the MA Cultural Council, has written for the NY Times, and lectured at Brown University, the NAEA conference, and in Vancouver & China. She has been profiled in Artsy, Hyperallergic, KPCC, & WBUR.

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[artprof]

👄 share your art in weekly voice sessions with staff
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[chulangaaverilhettiarachch]

To the person reading this: Even though I don’t know you, I wish you the best of what life has to offer ❤

[pianickname]

"Please don't eat it" :D haha

[EvermoreisTimeless]

I’m starting a new painting for my class and my teacher really doesn’t like when we go it with a lot of colors and he prefers starting monochromatic. But I really liked how you did it with the underpainting being the opposite color. I really want to apply this to my painting. I hope he doesn’t get mad :/

[raerae]

Absolutely love this art prof vid. Only 14 mins long. No annoying music. Loads of brilliant advice(the tip about the chemical bonds was pretty mind-blowing). Great editing. Fascinating to watch Alex paint too.
Did i mention only 14 mins long? 😉

[Texbun]

now I want to go to Michael's and buy more an art supply hoarder and I'm okay with that.

[cinderblockstudios]

As an acrylic painter, I'd say his color choices are VERY personal for him, and not necessarily what every painter should get. I'm in agreement that black shouldn't be used for shadows, but I feel titanium white is a staple for beginners or pros a like. However, his set is very much that of a "class" oriented set, and not something that will be versatile enough for an artist browsing YT videos. Basics color theory sets are I feel the best for most painters of any level.

Also the idea that if your paint dries on the bristles and you're "done" isn't true. A little rubbing alcohol goes a long way.

[fritzmasten]

This man isn't a slick painter. His work has a wonderful honesty . Refreshing.

[ssia]

Acrylic paints have come a long way in recent years. The chemistry has improved color lasting, and vibrancy. I personally find them superior to oils, with more color choices and mediums. Plus the toxicity is nowhere near oil, unless you eat them.

[quixoticindiscipline]

1:30 I never realized that white was dulling up my colors, I always noticed it, but couldn't understand what I was doing wrong, since every tutorial on youtube advises to use white.

A lesson on brightening or darkening colors without using white or black would be great help! I assume I can use any light or dark color, as long as I take into account their warmness or coolness?

[QuickQuipsReels]

For paints I suggest also to get the primary colors warm and cool variations because for example when you want to mix vivid colors (vivid purple), then you want to mix a cool red and a warm blue. If the red is warm then it will be less saturated purple (because warm red has more yellow in it and if we mix yellow, red and blue together we get gray/black) So the purple would go more to the gray side of colors thus not being as vivid. Hope that helps anyone.

[SixString_J]

What I've always used as a pallette: Took design101 in community college and the professor had us bring a 8x10 picture frame in "cheapest you can find".... first day with the frame we removed the glass and taped the sides and corners with painter's tape. It's amazing because if we were trying to match a color when mixing, we set the glass pallette on top of the reference and mixed until matched.

[deadflowerzzz]

Thank you for such a thorough video and I love the different textures on the lobster

[nabilaahmeidiati]

This is one of my favorite acrylic lesson video in the entire youtube! I can’t believe I watch the entire 14 minutes in one sitting! It feels so enjoyable! I’m really looking forward for another acrylic painting lessons!!

[kaybrown]

This was the best acrylic tutorial I've seen. I've learned more in this last half hour than I have in years of using this medium.

[dougsundseth]

Excellent information for a certain type of painting. I learned a few things here even though I've painted with acrylics for decades. That said, a few points points that I noticed:

Palettes - Acrylic paint tends to dry _very_ quickly on a flat palette (but see below). Well palettes give you a better volume to surface area ratio than flat palettes, so the paint can stay workable longer. Porcelain well palettes are much easier to clean than plastic well palettes, so if you go with a well palette, that's what I would use (and have used). But wet palettes can keep paint alive on the palette much longer. This is especially so if you use (as I do) very fluid paints. For quite fluid paint like the Golden Fluid Acrylics and High Flow Fluid Acrylics, I prefer to use baking parchment rather than the palette papers that come with at least the Masterson wet palettes.

Brushes - I work with thin, fluid paints and I work both small and tight. For that kind of painting, I strongly prefer natural-hair brushes (specifically premium Kolinsky brushes) to nylon ("Golden Taklon" or whatever trade name). Nylon brushes tend to lose their points very quickly even when cleaned regularly and carefully, where a Kolinsky can be a workhorse for a year or more. But as I say, I don't do large pieces and I paint very tight, so the brush tip geometry is crucial for me.

Brush Cleaning - Dish soap or shampoo is fine for polymer brushes. For natural hair, though, it strips all the natural oils and turns the brush into a mop. If you are going to use a detergent with natural hair brushes, do what you would do with your own hair and use a hair conditioner after cleaning. FWIW, I generally prefer to use a dedicated brush soap like The Masters to avoid the two-step process. If you somehow let paint dry in your brush, Winsor & Newton makes a Brush Cleaner & Restorer that will clean even dried acrylic paint out of the bristles of a brush. It will also clean the lacquer off the handle of the brush if you aren't careful, and I'm pretty sure it's at least a bit toxic, but it's an option.

Photographing gloss-surface paintings - If you don't do lots of impasto work, using strip lights at a 45° angle from either side of the painting should kill the specular reflection quite effectively. (A very large painting might also need lights above and below, but we're talking _very_ large here.) If you do a lot of impasto work, you might have to matte the painting before photographing, since some part of the texture may always act like a mirror reflecting the light directly at the camera, but even here, if your lights are large enough you can limit your specular reflections.


I hope some of that helps someone.

[laura]

I love this guy. His voice is so calm and everything about him is relaxing. Great vid 👍

[sentientcharcoal]

I come back to this video all the time because it has so many helpful sections and Alex is such a great teacher.

[merryryely]

I have never tried the color palette you've mentioned... I usually go for magentas, a close primary yellow, phthalo blue, titanium white (mixing white for special purposes), and yellow ochre burnt sienne prussian blue just to make mixing easier (depending on the painting)...

and it's good you mentioned the proper way to clean the brushes... we use hot water to restore some misshapen brushes sometimes...

with the pencil sketch, depending on the acrylic quality... it's hard to cover the sketch, so people still need to be careful with that...

also depending on quality, acrylic will look different after it dries, so budget artists watch out for that...

underpainting with complimentary color.. wow.. i should try that, might make everything easier...

and gorgeous painting btw love it

[allisonstarrr]

This was so helpful! The complementary colors in the under paint. And I did not know white was having that effect on my mixing but it makes perfect sense!