I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio over the last few weeks – finally my creative mojo seems to be back! Hooray! It’s prompted me to solve quite a few technical problems and really think about the way I work, so I thought it would be a great time to share my top tips on painting with acrylics…
If you’re new to working with this medium – or an old hand – I hope I might have a tip or two that will make your painting more fun and fabulous!
And if you have any top advice on the subject yourself, please do share with me and other readers in the comments below – there’s nothing more exciting than to be than learning something that saves you time, money or makes your work easier…
1. Getting Acrylic Paint off your Hands
I’m a messy worker, and I always get my hands covered in paint when I’m in the studio. I do keep disposable plastic gloves to hand (available from craft stores / Ebay / pound shops / chemists / catering supply shops), but often don’t use them often, as I like to experience what I’m making through touch as well as sight. I also paint with my fingers a lot, and this can’t easily be done with gloves on (the plastic gets stuck to the canvas, provides unintended textures in the paint and you really can’t feel what you are doing).
Wet paint isn’t too bad to wash off, but not much will remove dried-on acrylic paint from skin and nails – certainly not hand soap or shower gel.
I find the only thing that works is nail varnish remover. I put a little on a cotton pad and wipe over the painty areas, which will remove most of the paint. Washing your hands after is very necessary to remove the noxious smell – trust me you don’t want it in your nostrils all day after! Please remember that I have normal, un-senstive skin and therefore don’t have any issues with occasionally using this method – if you have sensitive skin I guess you’ll know if you’re likely to react to nail polish remover or not. I always use a good hand cream afterwards too as nail varnish remover is quite drying.
Alternatively, soaking your hands in a warm bath then gently rubbing them can help loosen some of the paint (but beware this does tend to leave a painty scum in the bath that you’ll have to scrub off afterwards).
2. Getting paint off your clothes
The absolutely key thing, when you’ve got acrylic paint on your clothes, is don’t let it dry out. Change quickly and put the marked clothes in a tub of water if you can’t wash them immediately (this will stop the paint setting).
I find that in most cases, if I catch a spill this quick and don’t let it dry too much, I can get the vast majority of marks out of most types of fabric.
Before washing (or soaking) you can carefully scrape off any blobs of paint, being careful not to smear paint over an even wider area. Don’t, whatever you do, scrub at the marks as you’ll just work the paint into the fibres of the cloth. If you’re out in the field then you can cover the marked area with some wet wipes or a damp napkin, tie up in a plastic bag, and try keep them damp until you can wash the item.
I don’t use any fancy stain removers or detergents, and just wash on the mode and temperature that I would normally use for that garment.
Don’t dry the garment until you’ve checked it for any residual signs of paint – this gives you a window of opportunity to try washing it again if needed. The drying process will permanently set in any paint residue.
Once the paint is dry and set your only hope is scraping at it until it’s less visible (being careful not to damage the fabric).
Alternatively you could disguise the disaster – I have been known to paint in paint spots with a bit more acrylic paint, this time of the original colour of the fabric!
3. Buying Cheap Paint
Acrylic paint can be expensive (especially if you’re making a lot of work or working on large canvases), so it’s natural to look for ways to cut the cost…
Don’t be tempted to buy cheap squeezy bottles of crafters acrylic (you’ll often see these in craft shops at around 99p / £1.99 a bottle) – it’s fine for certain craft applications, but tends to be a very loose consistency and lower pigment density than artist-quality paints. They often have a high percentage of white pigment in the colour mix (meaning even bright or dark colours come out looking pastel / with a slightly chalky finish) and sometimes separate very quickly in the bottle.
When buying artist quality paints, go for the best quality you can afford for finished work (by all means choose student-grade if you’re just trying things out or working in your journal).
4. Making Acrylic Paint Go Further
If you’re laying down large areas of paint for the base of your painting, sometimes a cheaper, student-grade acrylic paint can cut costs (as long as you’re not looking for high density of colour) – or spraying with acrylic spraypaint can be a more cost-effective and efficient option. I’ve heard of people using standard household decorators emulsion, but I’ve not personally tried it. You can then work over the top with your higher quality paints.
Alternatively, if you want to work dark to light colours, you can buy pre-stetched black cotton canvases at little more cost than white cotton ones (made by Pebeo), which might minimise the mount of paint you need to complete your work. In a similar way, if you desire a warm undertone to your work, using a natural linen canvas can cut down on the need for underpainting.
5. What to Choose… Tubes? Bottles? Tubs? Pouches?
Another good way to keep down costs is to not waste paint… Some styles of tube or bottle are easier than others to get paint from without pouring or squeezing too much (and likely wasting it). On the whole, I find I have more control with tubes (plastic or metal) than I do with bottles. I’ve just recently discovered paint pouches from Senellier, and they seem to be the most easily controlled way of squeezing paint that I have found yet. It’s easy to be delicate with the squeeze!
It’s a good idea to think about the quantity you’re buying paint in too. Lots of small tubes can be more expensive per ml of paint, and also involve a lot of wasted paint stuck in the ends of the tubes when you finish a tube up. Buying too large a quantity can mean the paint deteriorates or dries up before you’ve finished the bottle or tub. Try and hit a balance between economy of scale and the amount you’ll use of any particular brand / colour.
6. What colours?
I’m all for a bit of convenience (especially when woking in the middle of a field in a howling gale), but it’s easy to end up with drawers full of myriad different colours of paint. Always bear in mind you can go back to basics – you only need a few colours to be able to mix all the colours you could possibly need, and colours that are rarely used may dry-up in the tube. It’s about hitting a balance again.
I find, of all the colours, white is the one I go through in biggest quantity. After that, basic red and blue tubes and a couple of yellows… Depending on your subject matter and personal preferences, you’ll have your own palette of colours you prefer – and that means each artist’s colour shopping list is different. The colour I by far buy least often is black. When working on representational paintings it’s almost never needed – who ever saw anything in real life that’s actually jet black, least of all shadows! I very occasionally use it in abstract work.
Remember when choosing paint to consider things like light stability. All brands offer guidance on this, and if a colour you’ve taken a fancy to turns out to be a less stable one, you can always find or mix up an alternative rather than risk it.
7. The best paint palette?
You really don’t need to spend money on purposely made palettes. The ones with little paint wells are particularly not useful for painting with acrylics – if you filled all the little wells up with paint (ready to create, pretty as a picture in a rainbow arc) half the colours would have dried out before you needed them! These are better for oils and watercolour painting. I also find a lot of commercially made palettes a bit small in surface area for my liking. Some people who paint acrylics like the tear off pads of disposable paper palettes.
My palette of choice in the studio is a large flat piece of 4mm clear acrylic (as used for glazing sheds and the like) – it’s heavy enough not to move around when taking paint from it, and I can cut it to any size or shape I like.
I don’t tend to clean my palette (ever) as acrylic paint dries so quickly you don’t get much of a chance. Also I don’t find layering paint on top of paint particularly problematic.
When working out in the field, I find the best palette is a scrap bit of plastic that I can throw into a plastic bag when I’m done and then throw away – something like a (well cleaned) tray from a ready meal or lid of an ice cream tub. downside of this kind of thing is that it’s light and liable to fly off in the wind if you don’t take precautions. Plus side is that you’re not scrubbing clean something you’ve invested money in thats likely to have also got muddy and covered in bit of grass and dust.
8. Saving paint at the end of a painting session.
Acrylic paint wants to set hard so fast and so badly that sometimes there’s little you can do to salvedge unused paint on your palette (as mentioned before, the best course of action if you’re trying to be economical is simply to not squeeze too much out). If you do want to try and save, you can wrap any palette in cling film (food wrap), some paint will stick to the film when you remove it and some may go off hard anyway, but you might manage to save some of the paint if you’ve wrapped it fairly airtight.
The other alternative is to create a stay wet palette… Get a large plastic tub (one you don’t mind being marked with paint, and that’s scrupulously clean, with an airtight lid). Line the bottom with a wad of something absorbent (like newspaper or kitchen towel) and damp it down. Then add a piece of greaseproof paper / parchment paper (that’s been cut to size) on the top. You can then squeeze your paints out onto the paper and, when you are done, carefully fix on the lid of the tub to keep your paints in a moist environment. This should keep your paint from drying out overnight, if not for several days. If the bottom layer is getting dry, carefully lift off the greaseproof paper and re-wet it! If you find the area offered inside is too small for mixing in, just use this as an area to squeeze your paint onto and use something else to mix on. The only criticism I have of this method is that its hard to get white greaseproof paper, and mixing on the brown stuff (that you can buy easily) is slightly less satisfying and very marginally more tricky in terms of seeing colours clearly. Also, very occasionally I’ve had a little moisture wick into the paint itself, watering it down slightly. I wouldn’t let either of these small issues put you off giving this a go though!
9. Which brushes?
With acrylics there is a lot of room for choice and experimentation when it comes to finding your ideal tools for laying down paint!
Unlike watercolours, acrylic paint isn’t so fussy about the brush you use (I find)! Don’t bother with sable or squirrel brushes – these animal hair-divived bristles are great for watercolour as they hold more water, but are very soft and bendy for thick paints like acrylics and unnecessarily expensive for this type of work (you might want to break this rule if you heavily dilute your acrylic paint). Some people like hog bristle brushes for acrylic painting, but a good synthetic is just fine (and bonus it’s vegan, if that kind of thing bothers you).
Avoid any brush with bristles that are very hard, as you will leave marks in the finish your paint. If you’ve bought a brush that feels particularly stiff, before giving up on it try washing it thoroughly with warm water and a little hand soap – it may have been ‘set’ in the factory with a gum solution to keep it’s shape in transit / on display. Having said all this, the more viscous the paint you are using, the stiffer the brush you’ll want to use – so some stiffness in a brush isn’t always a bad thing!
The main issue I have with cheaper brushes is loss of bristles – acrylic paint is sticky and can pull them out if at all loose (and removing loose hairs stuck into the surface of your painting is frustrating and problematic). Incidentally, my tip if you do get the odd loose hair in the still-wet paint on your canvas, don’t pick at it, let the paint dry and pick it out then – you’ll damage your work less. You can then cover up any mark it’s left in the painting far more easily than repainting a whole area.
Temper the amount you’re willing to spend on brushes against the amount of care you’re likely to lavish on them. As your skills as a painter increases, a slightly better quality brush can unlock greater finesse and control in your work, however it’s a waste of money to spend on good brushes if you know you’re terrible at forgetting about them and leaving them lying about unwashed (see ‘Saving Wrecked Brushes’ below).
My personal favourite brushes are the Rosemary & Co Shiraz series, which come in long and short handle options.
I won’t go into the specifics of the types of brushes to use for your acrylic painting – filbert, flats, rounds, long handle, short handle… I think of all things this is a matter for personal preference. I know a lot of artists work almost exclusively with filberts but I really dislike them. I work mostly using flat brushes.
10. Painting NOT Using Brushes
Having said all the above, a lot of the time I don’t work with brushes at all…
I’ll make extensive use of sprayed acrylic paint, and I rely heavily on finger painting! The painting shown here (from my Treasures Beneath series) was exclusively painted using fingers and a scrunched up carrier bag. Balls of cling film too can be exciting to experiment with, it’s got a slightly ‘stickier’ characteristic compared to other plastics. Rags and cloths can similarly produce beautiful textures (a la that great 80’s trend for wall paint effects – ragging), but also to apply paint in a softer, blurred way when wrapped around a finger. Damp the rag and you’ll get an even more interesting effect, as you lift wet and semi wet layers of paint off the canvas to reveal dried layers below.
I enjoy making incised marks into the paint – what’s wonderfully termed Sgraffito. You can use anything really – the easiest is the end of your paintbrush handle. Alternatively try a chopstick, pencil, cocktail stick, dead biro, the end of a ruler, your fingernail… This technique works best if the paint is wet or semi-wet – it’s quite hard (impossible almost) to scrape back dry paint. One word of warning: it’s quite possible to scratch too hard and put your scraping object through the canvas, making a hole (I did this once using a ink dip pen nib that, on reflection, was far too sharp for the purpose), so scratch with some care!
I love using objects to apply textures to the canvas in a kind of printing technique – wallpaper, textured fabrics, bubblewrap, the inside layer of corrugated cardboard and many other things can be used in this way. Apply paint to them with a brush or spray can, apply to the canvas and rub through the back. You can also use textured materials to pull areas of paint back off the canvas, as long as the paint is sufficiently wet, leaving a pattern behind. These techniques offer opportunity for some exciting, unplanned effects!
I’m also a lover of the Princeton Brush Co’s Catalyst silicone wedge tools, as pictured. I wrote up a review here…
10. Cleaning Brushes / Saving Wrecked Brushes
I’ve never invested in special artists brush cleaning soaps. I discovered early on that all you need is a little liquid hand soap – the sort of thing you’ll likely have sitting next to your sink anyway! These are tough enough to remove acrylic paint but also tend to have some sort of moisturiser in them, which when using synthetic brushes as I do, is enough to condition the bristles.
It’s best to wash your brushes as soon as you’ve finished working with them – the wetter the paint the more thorough a job you’ll do of getting it out of the fibres. If for some reason you can’t do this (for example the phone goes or you’re working outdoors), wrap them in anything moist (a dampened rag or kitchen towel – I find wet wipes particularly handy to have available for this purpose) and if possible also wrap them in some plastic (a plastic bag or cling film), this should keep everything most until you can clean them properly with running water.
If you do have a disaster and forget to wash a brush, don’t automatically assume it’s for the bin. Certainly with synthetic bristles you’ve got a fair chance of winning it back from the dead. First-off try washing it with hand soap and fairly warm water – you might need to scrape at any globs of paint carefully with your thumbnail… you might find you can actually clean the dried paint off still! If this doesn’t work, try siting the brush in a jam jar of warm water for a bit and have another go (normally I wouldn’t advise leaving brushes in water, it damages the wooden handles and can make it come loose from the ferrule – but in this case what have you got to loose?). If you can only remove some of the dried-on paint, try painting with it anyway – you might be surprised! A rescued brush can sometime provide it’s own unique way of laying down paint – you might like it…
I have lots more tips for painting with acrylics that I’ve not shared here (I thought ten top tips sounded nice – and frankly the article was getting rather long and wordy) – if you’d like me to do another post featuring them, please let me know (if I get enough votes I’ll gladly oblige).
If you have enjoyed this article and found it useful, do share it widely with anyone who might like it…
Please remember that this article represents the accumulated knowledge of over ten years of hard work and experimentation, so if you do want to pass on any of this advice I’d really appreciate a credit (thank you)! x