Acrylic Painting Essentials — Everything You Need To Get Started

Acrylic paint is a highly versatile paint made up of water, pigment and a polymer binder, drying to a permanent,  smooth, satin-finish when the water in the paint evaporates. Popular among artists, students and crafters, acrylic paint is easy to use, dries quickly and can be applied on a range of different surfaces. You only need a handful of tools and materials to get started with this painting medium, making acrylic paints a great choice for beginners.

The Painting Essentials 

Acrylic Paint

Acrylic paints are available in a range of different viscosities, from thick, heavy-bodied paints to paint pens, acrylic inks and even spray paints, each formulated to suit a different painting technique. 

We offer Winsor and Newton’s Galeria acrylic paint tubes — a medium bodied paint with a smooth, fluid consistency for quick and easy coverage. Available in 60 vibrant colours, these acrylic paints are easily diluted with water to alter the consistency, and they dry opaque, permanent and lightfast with a satin finish.

We stock the full Galeria range, so you can choose acrylic colours to suit the subjects you love to paint, but for a beginners all-round colour palette we’d recommend the following five colours. These will allow you to mix a range of different colours and shades, perfect for experimenting with.  

Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber & Titanium White. 

If you still feel intimidated by the idea of picking your own palette, Winsor & Newton’s Galeria Acrylic Paint Set includes ten acrylic paint tubes in a range of primary and secondary colours, ideal for exploring this medium.

Acrylic Paint Brushes

Most paint brushes are suitable for acrylic painting, providing you take good care of them and clean them immediately after use. We’d recommend Pro Arte’s range of synthetic brushes which are ideal for smooth applications of paint, soft colour blending and adding fine details. Thicker, stiff bristle brushes like Daler-Rowney’s Georgian Oil brushes are also a great choice for those looking to apply thicker layers of colours and try out more textured paint techniques.

We advise picking out two or three brushes in different sizes to start with and adding to your collection as you gain confidence. Round brushes are a great style to start with as they are very versatile, tapered to a fine point allowing you to create marks of various thicknesses depending on the amount of pressure you apply. Flat, one-stroke brushes are also a good choice, great for blocking in large areas or for seamless blending. 

Acrylic paint will dry fast, so we advise rinsing and cleaning your brushes with warm water and soap immediately after every painting session. Be careful not to let acrylic paint dry on your brushes as it can be quite difficult to remove the hard paint without damaging the bristles. 

Painting Palette

Ceramic plates, tiles and palettes are a popular choice among acrylic painters, as these non-stick surfaces are easy to mix your colours on and clean after use. We offer a range of ceramic palettes, all of which have been divided up into individual sections or wells ideal for keeping colours separate when painting.

Traditional wooden palettes can also be used with acrylics, offering a toned surface that can help you see how colours look on warmer backgrounds. Untreated wooden palettes are very absorbent, so we’d recommend sealing and varnishing the palette before use to minimise staining.

Stay-Wet covered palettes are also well loved by acrylic painters, as the water reservoir papers inside and lid keep the paints from drying out too quickly, allowing you to keep pre-mixed colours fresh on your palette for longer. Unless you’re using a stay-wet palette, acrylic paint will dry within 1 to 2 hours, so be mindful of how much paint you squeeze out of the tube to prevent waste. 

Acrylic Painting Surfaces

Acrylic paint can be applied on many surfaces including paper, canvas, wood, fabric and pottery. Although you can work directly onto most surfaces, we’d recommend priming canvases and other more unusual surfaces with a gesso primer, which will provide a better surface for the paint to adhere to and prevent the paint from cracking once dry.

If you’re working on initial or simply experimenting with mark making and different techniques, we’d recommend a sketchbook or paper pad. Winsor & Newton’s Acrylic Paper Pad has been designed specifically for acrylic painting, with an embossed paper texture that mimics a canvas and no need for priming — just paint straight onto the paper surface.

Canvas boards and traditional deep edge cotton canvases are a great option for layered and textured acrylic artworks, as they will hold thicker layers of paint without warping. These are all pre-primed with a highly pigmented gesso, ready for you to paint.

 

  

Anything Else?

Once you’ve picked out your acrylic colours, brushes and a surface to paint on, you’re pretty much ready to get started! You can use an old jar or glass from the kitchen to hold your water and rinse your brushes, and an old plate, tile or even container will work for mixing and storing colours as you work. However, if you’d like to get more out of your painting experience, we’ve listed a few more materials below that you could use.

Palette Knives

Palette knives are perfect for using with heavy-bodied mediums and thicker applications of paint, helping you to layer colour and add texture to your artwork. We offer Daler-Rowney’s palette knives in a range of shapes and sizes, from scrapers and straight edged spatulas to trowel shaped designs ideal for mixing your colours and saving your brush from damage. 

Acrylic Mediums & Varnishes

Like oil paints, you can add acrylic mediums to your paints to alter the consistency, flow and finish. Structure Gel will add more body to your paint, helping you to add texture and depth to the acrylic, whereas a Fluid Retarder will extend the working time and flow of the paint, creating a smoother paint ideal for larger blocks of colour and seamless blending.

To seal your finished paintings, we offer Winsor & Newton’s Galeria Acrylic Varnishes in both Gloss and Matt. These are particularly useful for those painting on alternative surfaces, as the varnish will seal the painting and keep it from chipping over time.

 

Acrylic Inks

We offer a range of Liquitex’s Acrylic Inks, an ultra-fluid medium similar to traditional drawing inks, but with the lightfast, permanent and fast-drying qualities of an acrylic paint. Use with a paintbrush to create bold washes of colour and vibrant base layers to your paintings, or try with a dip pen and nib for fine details and illustrations.

Paint Markers

We love Posca's paint markers, a water-based paint pen that offers the opaque permanent finish of an acrylic paint but with the control of a pen. They’re extremely versatile and can be used on almost any surface, from paper, board and canvas to glass, textiles, stone and plastic. Artists will often use these pens to add in finer details on top of their acrylic painted artworks, from reflections to signing their name once they’ve finished the piece.

Brush Washing Pot

Designed to help you clean your brushes with ease, our metal brush washer is great for those working with acrylic as it helps you clean your brushes and catch the excess acrylic plastic sediment. Use the spring at the top of the pot to suspend your brushes in water without damaging or bending the bristles, then use the mesh strainer at the bottom to catch any sediment. As acrylic paint is made up of a plastic polymer, avoid putting it down the drain where possible. 

Looking for inspiration?

We have plenty of art and tutorial books to get you inspired, including 15 Minute Art: Painting which contains 50, step-by-step botanical painting projects exploring houseplants, leaves, florals and fungi. With practice pages, colour swatches and helpful hints, this book is perfect for beginners starting out on their acrylic painting journey.

 

 

Have any questions? Please feel free to email us at hello@saltartsupply.co.uk, and we’d be happy to help you! We love to see the work you create using our tools, materials and recommendations, so make sure to tag us @saltartsupply on Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok.