Painters Online

Start Art 8 49 www.painters-online.co.uk Getting started in acrylics Lee Hammond demonstrates fast and easy techniques to help you paint your favourite subjects in this versatile medium RT START Y ou don’t need a room full of supplies to begin painting with acrylics. I use a very small number of colours on my palette and only a few different brushes. Keeping it simple makes me feel more relaxed in my work area. A tackle box is a great place to keep your painting supplies. It’s easy to carry with you when you want to paint on location, and it acts as a storage unit when you’re not painting. Have fun creating your own custom acrylic painting kit! The materials you’ll need to do the exercises and demonstrations here are listed to help you. What is acrylic paint? Acrylic paints are made of dry pigment in a liquid polymer binder, which is a form of acrylic plastic.Acrylics are water-based, so they require no paint thinners as oil paints do, though they can be diluted with water while painting. Acrylic paint dries quickly to a waterproof finish. Because of its plastic, waterproof quality, it can be used on a variety of surfaces. It’s a favourite for painting on windows, outdoor signs, walls and fabric. It’s permanent, so items painted with it are washable. Varieties of acrylic paint Many varieties of acrylic paints are available.Your choice depends partly on the project you’re planning to do. There are acrylics formulated for folk art, fine art, even for painting on fabric, walls or signs. For the projects here, look for paints labelled “high viscosity” or “professional grade.”Other kinds of acrylic paint will be too thin, with a pigment concentration too low for satisfactory results. Student-grade paints and those in squeeze bottles generally have a lower concentration of pigment.The pigment is still high quality; there is just a little less of it. Many student grades are so good that professionals use them as well.They are very fluid, easy to work with and easy to mix. Professional-grade paints have a higher concentration of pigment. They are usually a bit thicker than student-grade paints, and their colours may seem more deep and vivid. Professional grades are found in tubes or jars. Paints, tools and supplies A simple set of tools and a limited palette of colours are all you need to start painting in acrylics.A tackle box makes a great storage unit. Tubes, jars or bottles? Acrylic paints come in tubes, jars and squeeze bottles. I prefer to use the jars so I can reuse leftover paint. I can also mix special colours for specific projects and place those colours in empty jars. You will find paints in tubes, jars and squeeze bottles. I prefer using paint from a jar rather than from a tube or bottle.Acrylic paint dries quickly, so if I have some uncontaminated colour left over on my palette, I return it to the jar to avoid wasting it.This is not possible with paint from a tube or bottle. I also like jars because I can mix my own custom colours for a particular painting and store them in separate jars.This is helpful if you are working on a large project and need to keep your colours consistent as you work. For the projects in this book, I used a palette of nine colours: ivory black, cadmium red medium, cadmium red light, burnt umber, cadmium yellow medium, alizarin crimson, Prussian blue, dioxazine purple and titanium white. ˚