We hope this has been helpful on your artistic journey.
The Children’s Art Book
Acrylic paints are ideal starter paints for children. They can be used straight from the bottle, need no mixing with water, and dry to a waterproof surface. Painting need not be boring swings of the brush! With knowledge of some basic painting techniques, children can practice fine motor skills and have more fun with acrylic paint!
Squeeze paint onto a palette, and load it up immediate onto a dry brush without diluting. Drag your brush across the painting surface with light pressure. The dry brush technique imprints textured uneven brush lines that flows according to movements. Dry brushing works best when used over a painted texture surface.
Children paint realistic light fluffy clouds with a soft large rounded brush. The same brush can also create impression of sand when used on paintings of playgrounds or the beach!
A sharp edged hard brush can be used to create tree bark textures and perfect for printing lines of the coconut palm leaves.
Difficulty: Age 3 years old and up.
Washing
If you thin the acrylic enough with a lot of water, it begins to behave like watercolour, except that watercolours may be lifted off the canvas. Acrylic washes thinned with water appear translucent, are often used as paint foundations, such as flesh tones when painting humans. Build up colour and tone with additional washes.
Choose paper that are fairly heavy to accept the washes of acrylic paint without tearing or buckling. Use at least 125gsm art paper. Careful though, children especially enjoy tearing paper when its wet!
If your art room at home is running out of poster paints, you may try acrylic washing instead.
Difficulty: Age 5 years old and up. Might get messy, adults may help to dilute acrylic before use.
Stippling
Put it simply, stippling involves creating an assembly of random tiny dotted colours and scattered brush marks using the bristle ends of the brush. This assembly of many small spots of colours shows textures through build up of acrylic paint on top of another, creating subtle variations of colour and illusions of grain.
Stippling is perfect for painting tiny petals of a flower field, or feathers of the chicken! Older children may know recognise stippling as very similar to pointillism, a technique associated with famous French painter Georges Seurat.(refer to Circus Sideshow (Parade de Cirque) (1889)
Encourage children to stipple with common textured objects found at home, such as sponges, cotton buds and bubble wraps. Dab the object lightly with acrylic paint, and press on the canvas and lift quickly. Repeat the dabs and lifts until you achieve the density of small spots with the intended texture!
Difficulty: 7 years old and up.
Awesome Acrylic Painting Techniques
We’ve taken the liberty to make up a list of the best acrylic painting techniques for beginners so you can learn more about and practice your craft. Here they are:
Drybrush
This is the act of brushing paint onto dry paper straight out of the tube with a dry brush. It will give out strong edges and deep colors because there is no water to absolve it.
Washing
Similar to watercolor, you can use water with acrylic to get lighter, more transparent tones. However, the main difference is that water does not activate paint meaning once it sets, it can’t be changed. Try combining washing with dry brushing to get a mixture of textures.
Layering
This technique is as simplified as it sounds. Adding layers to layers to create more depth. Often, you’ll want to start with light layers and get darker as you move up.
Glazing
Adding a matte medium will make your painting shine like never before. This is called glazing. Many people do this at the end to give the painting a new effect.
Underpainting
Choose a color that contrasts your entire palette to ‘sketch’ your design lightly to begin. After that, use your main palette of colors to paint over the sketch. Your underpainting, though not entirely visible, should add a contrasting touch to your work.
Detailing
Detailing is done with small, fine-bristle brushes to add artistic flair and a realistic look to your work. It’s exactly the technique you would assume.
Palette Knife
Using a palette knife to apply your acrylic paint is a classic technique to get fine lines and a traditional ‘paint’ look.
Dabbing
With some sort of object like a sponge or paper towel, simply grab some paint from your palette and add it to your canvas by dabbing it to the sheet.
Splattering
You’ll see a similar technique to this in watercolor. Simply wet your brush, add paint to the tip, and flick or splatter it onto your canvas. This is an abstract technique and is highly unpredictable.
Stippling
This is also known as dotting — you see it in sketching a lot — simply add a patch of dots to a piece for added texture or unique shapes.
Acrylic Pouring Technique
Pouring is just another of the many acrylic painting techniques. We’ve detailed an entire guide with step-by-step photos for your convenience here:
Acrylic Painting Supplies
Here’s what you need for starters:
Acrylic Paint
We’ll answer what is acrylic paint, how to use acrylic paint, and various ways of how to clean acrylic paint. In addition, we’ll compare the various types of acrylic paint like acrylic tubes, metallic acrylic paint, and more!
Best Acrylic Paint Set
Here we’ve reviewed a number of the top brands such as Liquitex Acrylic Paint, Golden, Michaels, Arteza, and Apple Barrel.
Best Acrylic Paint Pens
Acrylic pens are an important supply for the craft. We’ll go over all you need to know here.
Best Acrylic Paint Markers
Montana acrylic markers are widely known as the top acrylic paint marker in the industry. Here’s a review of a popular Montana acrylic marker set.
Acrylic Ink
Here’s everything you need to know about acrylic ink and how to use it.
Easy Acrylic Painting Tutorials
On our blog, you will find a variety of step by step acrylic painting tutorials. To get you started, check out some of the tutorials below:
Acrylic landscape paintings
Here is our collection of easy acrylic landscapes to do if you’re just starting out.
Techniques Of Acrylic Painting
As compared to other mediums Acrylic paint is a new medium which is added to the world of painting only since 1950’s. A lot of practice and patience is required to learn acrylic painting. Mostly artist prefer doing landscape painting in the beginning because it is the easiest way of starting this medium. Next level of this medium is usually portrait painting.
Versatility, permanence and ease of use are few benefits of using acrylic painting. It can be applied as thickly as required like in impasto or as thin as required like in watercolor. As compared to oil paint, acrylic does not yellow or get harden with age. Another important benefit of using acrylic is that it dries faster as compared to other mediums.
There are various techniques of doing painting in acrylic:
Watercolor Effect- A number of artists use acrylic in liquid state which is similar to watercolor but there is a noticeable difference. In this technique washes can be layered on each other without disturbing the color underneath. Before applying another layer one must wait for the applied layer to dry completely. Once dried the layer becomes insoluble in water which is then becomes difficult to modify which is one of the disadvantage of using acrylic. To avoid this problem you can either dampen the paper before painting or use an additional brush dampened with water.
Pour And Drip Technique- In this technique very fluid acrylic paint is used. Either you can pour paint directly or dip a brush in it and let it drop down onto the canvas. Some interesting effects can be created with this technique.
Sgraffito Technique- It is a scratching technique which involves scratching the surface of wet paint which reveals the layer underneath the paint. Screwdrivers or sharpened end of a paintbrush can be used for this technique.
Using A Squeegee- A squeegee can be used to create effects in a painting. Squeeze out paint blobs directly along one edge of your support and then with one fluid motion drag the paint across the surface with your squeegee smearing and mixing the paint as you go.
