Acrylic Paints - Easy Application

Why Paint With Acrylics?

My personal opinion is because they are easy to work with, are non-toxic, and easy cleanup with water. This is great news for anyone with allergies. These paints are also easy on the budget.

The price increases with the amount of pigment content.The pigment content matters depending on your painting techniques and how much richness and depth is required in your creation.

Acrylics are used in landscaping, portrait, and miscellaneous objects utilized in painting projects. These paints are very versatile and will adhere to any surface.

Prepare your chosen surfaces with essential base requirements to receive acrylics. Then paint in your style of water coloring, oil, or use acrylic paint as is.

Sketching:

Sketching may be done before or after layering. It is a personal choice. My personal preference for sketching is a combination of both pencil and paint. Select a standard graphite, colored pencils, or paint. If using graphite pencils use a very light application. Sometimes the pencil marks may peek through the paint. Colored pencils serve two purposes…sketching and previewing colors. Paint sketching also lends toward color presentation and is easily covered.

Prime and Layer Work Surface:

Prepare the chosen surface (paper, canvas, glass, wood, cloth, plastic, clay, etc.) with the appropriate primer to receive acrylic paints. Layer colors of watered down acrylic paint as outlined in your sketch. After being certain that these are the colors you wish to work with keep layering your paint until they give the texture and depth that you need for your painting.

Layering can be done horizontally, vertically, or overall. The layering preparation is dependent on the creation which is in your mind and later to be sketched on the background.

Use different tools to layer. Brushes are common usage. Try sponges, a piece of cloth, a spatula, or a wooden or plastic knife. Use your imagination to apply paint for creating a flat, fluffy, or ridged surface. Think about the texture as to how it will enhance detailed work.

 Benefits of a painted background:

1. A guideline for foundation colors, depth, texture, and richness of the finished work.
2. Prevents white paper or canvas peek-a-boos leaking through the work.
3. Painting the background sets the bonding agents of the foundation and the paints to adhere tightly together and prevent tint fade outs or chipping paint.

Blending:
After you have layered your paints (the application of paint on paint to help acquire texture,depth, and richness) another technique commonly used is blending. This is overlapping one tint over another.

This technique can create interesting colors. For instance, The layered pigment may be red, blend a brush stroke of yellow and the peek-a-boo color is orange. This technique makes for very interesting color variations or enhancement. With misting it can also create transparency within the tints.

Practice layering, blending, misting, or wet on wet technique to create interesting effects.

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