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Basic Acrylic Painting Supplies
You don’t need a lot of supplies to start painting with acrylics. In fact, you probably have some of these supplies already, so all you need is a few more affordable tools.
Here are the acrylic painting supplies you will need:
Pencil and Eraser
An essential drawing tool, pencils are great for sketching out your subject before the actual painting process. Starting with a light sketch allows you to work faster, as you already have an idea of where the colors need to go and what the final piece will look like.
While acrylic paint is fairly opaque, you still want to make sure that your sketch won’t show through in the final painting. For this reason, it’s best to use a hard-lead pencil that produces light lines. An eraser will also come in handy if you need to make changes to your sketch.
Paper or Canvas
Acrylic paint can be used on a wide variety of surfaces, but you can’t go wrong with canvas or paper. You can buy paper designed specifically for acrylic painting, but other heavy-weight papers will also work well. You can also use canvas panels primed with gesso, which lets you paint straight onto the surface. Without gesso, the paint would seep into the weaves of the canvas — so you want to make sure that your panels are primed and ready to go.
Brushes
When buying brushes, you want to choose ones that are suited for the techniques you want to master. If you’re not sure yet, you can start with a basic paintbrush set, which you can easily find in art supply stores.
In general, you’ll find two main brush shapes: flat and round. Round brushes are the most versatile and can be used for making bold strokes or fine details, making them a must in any toolkit. Flat brushes, on the other hand, are effective for blending and filling in large areas — so you will want to have a few on hand if you work with large canvases.
You can also find angled, fan, and liner brushes suited for different techniques. As you hone your skills, you’ll learn which brushes you like best for your style of painting.
Palette
Palettes are useful not just for mixing colors but also for switching between them during painting. You can find plastic palettes in any art supply store, but glass and ceramic ones are also available if you want a higher-end option. If you’re working with soft body or fluid acrylics, you can use small cups instead of a palette to mix your colors.
Optional: Acrylic Medium
Acrylic mediums let you change the appearance, texture, and viscosity of the paint to achieve a certain finish. Some of the most popular mediums include flow (for pouring), gel (for glazing and staining), and slow-drying (for oil painting techniques). These will open up a whole new field of options for you to use in your acrylic paintings, so they’re definitely worth exploring.
What to Consider When Buying Acrylic Paint
How to Paint with Acrylics
The Basic Supplies Are All You Need
Since painting originated, there have been vast improvements in the supplies used.
The great masters of painting did not have access to the advanced technology and quality of the supplies available today. They also did not have any secret supplies which allowed them to create such masterpieces. The masters used standard supplies (by current standards) with great skill.
If you are just starting out in painting, you should consider purchasing high-quality basic supplies and learn how to use them well.
There are many specialty tools that you should not even consider until you are more advanced, if at all. Do not fall into the trap that you must know how to use every material available.
Paint Brush
As a beginner, it can be very overwhelming deciding what paint brushes to purchase, so I would recommend purchasing a starter brush set as this will have all the essentials. You can then get a feel for what brushes you naturally prefer to use.
Paint brushes come in many different bristles and shapes. Some brushes are great all-rounders which you can use for most situations, whilst others are more of a specialty brush (such as the fan brush which is great for painting grass and trees).
Below is a summary of the different brush bristles and shapes:
Hog Bristle Brushes are stiff, springy and economical. These brushes are well suited for oil painting given their durability and stiffness.
Sable Bristle Brushes are not actually made from sable hair but rather from the tail of a species of mink (a member of the weasel family) found in North-Eastern China and Siberia. Sable bristle brushes are extremely fine, springy and hold lots of water, making them perfect for watercolor painting or fine oil / acrylic painting. Sable bristle brushes are expensive and I would not recommend starting with these brushes as a complete beginner due to the cost (unless you are rich, in which case you can do whatever you want).
Synthetic Brushes are economical and versatile options for all painting mediums. Most synthetic brush manufacturers will combine synthetic bristles with animal bristles to make for an economical yet reasonable quality paintbrush. However, please note cheap synthetic brushes are often not durable and will lose shape quickly.
Round brushes have a large belly and a long tapered end. They are extremely versatile and can be used for long, bold strokes and detail work.
A round brush made with sable hair comes to a very fine tip and can be used for delicate brushwork.
Filbert brushes are a personal favorite due to their versatility. It is somewhere between a round and flat brush. The curved tip allows for soft brushwork and blending. I use the filbert brush for any general brushwork.
Flat brushes have a flat tip and can be used to make long, consistent strokes or for line work. Flat brushes are great for blocking in solid shapes of color (i.e roads, fences, buildings, etc).
Fan brushes I find to be more of a specialty brush. They have a range of special uses, such as painting the leaves on trees or adding texture to grass or rocks. Fan brushes are essential for all landscape painters, but not so much for portrait painters.
1 Brush Sizes
There is no industry standard for brush sizes, so it is best to get familiar with one brand.
It is important to have a range of large, medium and small brushes.
I heard a saying once along the lines of “begin your painting with a broom and finish with a toothpick”. This simply means start a painting with your largest brush and, as you get more detailed, bring out the smaller brushes.
It is often recommended that you take the largest brush you feel comfortable with, then use one size up from that. The benefits of starting with large brushes include:
- There will be variance in your painting between using large and smaller brushes.
- Large brushes will ensure you focus on making economical and meaningful strokes. Every stroke will have influence with a large brush.
- By using only small brushes, you tend to get caught up in needless details and miss the overall statement of your painting.
- Large brushes are a great time saver, as you can quickly cover the canvas.
Personally, I use paint brushes as follows:
- For staining the canvas, I use the largest flat or filbert brush I have.
- For sketching the composition, I will use a medium-sized round brush (or sometimes even a fan brush if I want a very rough landscape sketch).
- For blocking in general colors and shapes I use a medium / large filbert. Sometimes I will use a flat brush if the shapes are very angular.
- For adding detail, I use smaller filbert and round brushes. I will also use the fan brush in certain situations, such as for painting leaves, grass or water.
- For signing the painting and adding very fine details, I use a small/medium round brush.
