When working with acrylics, there are several things to consider. As I discussed in the previous post, understanding paint consistency will have a huge effect on the results you can achieve. Fortunately, all you really need to manipulate acrylic paint is water. In fact, water is just as important to acrylic painting as the paint itself.
Unlike oil paint that can remain wet for several days (or even weeks), depending on the temperature and humidity, acrylic paint can dry within a few minutes. This can be both a great advantage and a huge annoyance. In this post, I will go over some tips for using acrylic paint (and not getting super frustrated in the process) followed by some techniques for color mixing and blending. You will also find a short video tutorial for painting a simple sky so you can try these techniques out yourself! Let’s dive in.
General Rules
Be Stingy!
Since acrylic paint dries very fast, you should try your best to estimate how much you’ll actually need before squeezing any paint out of the tube. If you aren’t sure, err on the side of too little. You can always squeeze out some more as necessary, but you can’t put it back. And there’s nothing worse than wasted paint.
That being said, if you aren’t just using paint straight out of the tube, it can be a pain trying to re-mix and match the same color if you run out. Estimating how much paint you will need will become more intuitive over time, but just try to think about how much of your canvas you need to cover with whatever color you are using. If you are painting the canvas one solid background color, then it’s a good idea to mix up a hefty size pile of paint, I’d say around the size of a sand dollar for a 16” x 20” canvas. If you are only doing a few minor details, a quarter size pile of paint can go a long way. Some wasted paint is inevitable, but you don’t want to be throwing money away by going overboard.
Water is Your Best Friend
It is also very important to keep your paint wet as you are working. It is very easy to forget about doing so only to find your untouched pile of yellow has completely dried out before you’ve even had the chance to use it. The easiest way to keep your paint usable is just to give them a spritz with a spray bottle every so often. How frequently you need to do this will depend on the temperature, but if you start to notice a film developing over your paint, or it starts to look plastic-y, give them a spray. It only takes a little mist, however, so don’t drench them either. Just a couple sprays over your palette is all that you’ll need.
In general, you also want to dip a dry brush in water first and swirl it into the paint before bringing it to your canvas. Be sure to dip your brush back into water every so often before getting more paint if you notice it’s starting to look fuzzy when you apply it. If you have too much water on your brush, blot it on a towel to prevent the paint from dripping down your canvas. As mentioned in the last post, you typically want paint the consistency of yogurt. You can thin it out further for blending and certain techniques, but too much water will make it runny and transparent.
Although the quick drying nature of acrylic can make it hard to keep it workable, it also makes it very forgiving. If you make a mistake while painting, you only have to wait a few minutes to cover up an area and try again. So even though it requires some diligence, I still think it’s the best type of paint to work with when you are just starting out.
Mixing Paint
I happen to love mixing paint. It is weirdly therapeutic and a great way to procrastinate when I’m too noncommittal to actually paint anything. If you want it to be useful, however, here’s a few things to keep in mind.
When mixing a pile of paint, try to keep it in as condensed a pile as you can. This will help keep it from drying out too fast and give you more space for other colors. Also, be sure your paint is thoroughly mixed before applying it to prevent uneven color (unless that’s an effect you are going for). I tend to use a palette knife to mix paint (as in the video below), but a brush also works. Just be sure to clean it thoroughly by scrubbing it on the bottom of your water jar and wiping it on a towel before mixing a new color or switching between colors.
When mixing lighter colors, it’s important to remember that a very small amount of darker pigmented colors (red, for example) will go a long way. I start with the lightest color in the mix then slowly add in small increments of darker colors to better control the tone. If you make a color too dark, it will take significantly more of the lighter tones to lighten it up again and you’ll likely end up with way too much paint. In the video below, you’ll see I use several scoops of white and add in very small amounts of blue at a time to make a light blue.
If you happen to run out of a color you’ve mixed up, I find the easiest way to achieve the same tone is to mix the new pile directly next to the old one for comparison and add very small amounts of paint at a time to make small adjustments. Keep in mind, acrylic paint will dry slightly darker than what it looks like when it is wet, so you want your pile of wet paint to look slightly lighter than what’s on your canvas. You can hold your palette knife or brush close to the canvas to compare. If you are unsure, try adding just a small dab to your canvas and letting it dry so you can adjust the color more if necessary.
In this video, I will show you how to mix up three colors which I’ll be using to blend a simple sky in the video in the following section. If you would like to try this yourself, the colors I used are titanium white, cadmium yellow, phthalo blue, and cadmium red, all of which I listed in an earlier post on supplies.
For reference, the paint mixtures are as follows:
- Light Blue: 3 scoops white, half scoop blue, small dab yellow
- Light Yellow: 2 scoops white, half scoop yellow, small dab red
- Dark Blue: 1 scoop blue, 1 scoop yellow, 1 scoop white
These are rough approximations and your colors don’t need to match exactly (or at all if you would like to experiment with your own colors!) so adjust as you see fit.
Blending
Now for the fun part. Using the colors I mixed above, I will show you how to paint a simple gradient. I’ll be building on this idea in a later post and be showing you how to paint some clouds, but for now, let’s focus on painting just the sky.
Just a couple notes before getting started. I’ll be using a single brush, but since we have multiple colors to work with, remember to clean off your brush in your jar of water and wipe it on a towel before moving to a new color so you don’t contaminate your paints. This is very important when blending and will keep your paint from turning muddy on your canvas. We want to have a soft, blended transition between colors, but each color should still be distinct.
I’ve harped on it many times already, but if it’s even possible, using water is even more important when blending. To avoid harsh lines and truly blend colors, you need to work wet on wet. This means you need to keep both the paint on your palette and on your canvas wet until you are finished blending. So, dip your brush in your jar frequently and avoid taking a snack break until you’re done with this step in your painting. You can reward yourself with some Cheetos later.
I typically start with the lightest color and work towards the darkest since dark colors can overpower lighter colors pretty quickly. (It is possible to go dark to light, however.) I also find it easiest to start above the previous color and work down using broad, sweeping brushstrokes. In this demonstration, I start with the yellow tone, then move to light blue, then finally the darker blue tone towards the top. You can bounce around colors to blend further and adjust the gradient, but I find it easiest to get the colors on where they need to be first.
Once the paint is on the canvas, you can try softening transitions between colors using just a slightly damp brush and no extra paint. If there’s already enough paint to cover the canvas, that’s often enough to manipulate. If you want to adjust the gradient (add more of a lighter tone, for instance) pick up some paint and start in the same color area. Then move into the color you want to blend into.
Check out the video below to see this in action.
Blending, like all other techniques, will become easier the more you practice. It can be tough (and even tiring) at the beginning because it forces you to work quickly. But as I’ve stated before, acrylic is very forgiving. If you are unsatisfied with the results the first time around, you can let they canvas dry and try it all over again. But it’s also important to not be too self critical. The Sistine Chapel wasn’t painted in a day. So have fun with it, experiment with mixing paints and color combinations, and see what you can do!
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