How to Paint With Acrylics

Now i will teach you how to paint with acrylics. acrylics is my second favorite paint after watercolor. here are what you have to do step by step.

To start an acrylic painting you need basically two things:
- Painting supplies
- Ideas for what to paint
Acrylic painting for beginners- all you need to know to get started-   The content of this article is copyrighted by Robie Benve
Acrylic painting for beginners- all you need to know to get started- The content of this article is copyrighted by Robie Benve | Source
Acrylic Painting Supplies

Gather your painting supplies in a well-lit area.
You’ll need:

Acrylic Paint. Get the best quality paint you can afford. Aim for artist quality, not student quality. The student quality hues have more fillers, and respond less efficiently to color and media mixing.
You don’t need many colors; a limited palette of basic colors is great for starters. To start with a very limited palette, you can get four colors: alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow, and titanium white. You can obtain black mixing the three primary colors together.
Brushes of different shapes and sizes. The rule of thumb for brushes is to use big brushes for big areas and loose painting style, and use small brushes for small areas and details.
Painting support: canvas, paper, board, etc. Acrylic paint works on many kinds of surfaces. If you buy pre-primed canvas, make sure it’s primed with acrylic gesso.
A canvas primed for oil painting is not suitable. Acrylics don’t stick on oily surfaces, and would peel off with time.
Water. Get a big jug of water to rinse the brushes when you switch from one color to another. Better yet, you should have two containers of water: one to rinse brushes from the paint, and one with clean water to use to dilute paint and moisten brushes when needed.
Cloth rag or paper towel. To dab brushes after rinsing, correct mistakes, etc.
Easel. It’s beneficial to keep your support at an angle that is quite perpendicular to your vision. This helps a lot with perspective and proportions. To keep your canvas or board inclined, you can use a stand up easel or a table top one. Easels come in different shapes and prices. You can get a table top easel for less than $10.
There is no substitute for practice. The more acquainted you are with the acrylic medium... the easier it is to express your ideas with more professionalism.
— Joseph Orr
"Painting is damned difficult - you always think you've got it, but you haven't." Paul Cezanne

How long have you been painting with acrylics?

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Best Light for Painting

The old masters like Leonardo and Botticelli set up their studio in a room with tall windows that would get a Northern light, because that’s the less direct light, it remains pretty stable throughout the day, and it would not alter colors with its warmth or hue.

If you can’t have a nice Northern window in your painting area, or if you need to paint when it’s dark outside, make sure that your artificial lighting has a neutral light scope. Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are good for this.

Arrange your light source and your canvas so that the light is higher than the canvas, and it’s not coming from behind you. This is to avoid disturbing reflections on the painting surface, and having your shadow cast on the painting surface.

 "Towards the Light" Acrylic on Canvas, by © Robie Benve, all rights reserved.
"Towards the Light" Acrylic on Canvas, by © Robie Benve, all rights reserved. | Source
Decide Your Painting’s Focus

What do you want to paint? What are you trying to represent? Maybe it’s a landscape, but what is it about that landscape that inspired you to paint it? Its light? Its calm? Its liveliness?

Before you get started decide what you are trying to represent in your painting and plan the composition of your painting around it. If you work from a photograph, there is no reason to be 100% faithful to the photo layout and/or colors.

You can alter sizes, positions, and colors of things to suit your artistic goal. You can edit some trees out, add some others, and move a home or a bridge to make your compositionmore balanced.

The quick drying time and incredible flexibility of acrylics allow for 'almost' foolproof experimentation.
— Corrine Loomis-Dietz
Plan Your Layout: It Will Save You From Troubles Later On

You can paint different colors from what you see, in order to stick with a specific color scheme.

Before you jump into your painting, make some preliminary sketches to use as reference. The rule of thirds can help you decide how to plan the layout of your painting and where to place your focal point.

The temptation to start painting right away is huge, but if you jump right into the drawing and painting on your canvas, you may find yourself stuck with a weak painting that needs improvement and you don't know how to "save" it. In many cases this is a sign of poor composition and value structure.

Some planning using value sketches can make a huge difference.

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Start Drawing on a Tinted Canvas

I used to draw first and then apply a tinted background for my painting. The problem with that is that the paint smudges your drawing, and it makes details hard to see.

I learned to tint the canvas first, and then draw my layout. It’s much easier this way.

You can pick any ground color that complements your composition. When in doubt, I usually paint a diluted base of yellow ochre on the whole canvas. It provides the painting a vibrant undertone, and it helps to get over the artist’s block in front of a white canvas.

Paint the Middle Values First

When you are happy with your composition, fill the rough shape of the focal point of your painting with the middle value for that object.

Than move to another object or shape adjacent your focal point and paint its rough shape with the middle value.

Keep working around the whole composition blocking in all the shapes and objects. Don’t bother about shadows and highlights at this stage.

Value Scale
Value Scale | Source
Adding Details to Your Painting

Once you have blocked off all the shapes in your composition, step back and take a look. Does it make sense? Did you choose good colors for each object?

Then go back and make the needed changes to colors. When you are happy with the colors, is the time to start filling in more details: smaller shapes, and different values. Start with the lighter values, then move to the darker ones.

Paint the shadows. Shadows should be of a cooler color than the rest of the object, they are never black.

Paint the Highlights Last

Last thing you need to do is to add the highlights. Highlights don’t have to be white; they can be a very light value of the main color of the object.

Step back often and look at your painting from a distance. This will help you see the direction your painting is going, evaluate your values and areas that need tweaking or improvement.

"Rich Peonies", 10"x10" Acrylic on Canvas by ©Robie Benve Art, all rights reserved
"Rich Peonies", 10"x10" Acrylic on Canvas by ©Robie Benve Art, all rights reserved | Source
Tell a Story on Canvas

Throughout the all process, keep your focal point in mind. What were you trying to achieve? Does it come through to the viewer?

The goal should not be to represent something, but to tell a story, to convey feelings. To remind yourself of the story that you are trying to depict, it’s a good idea to decide on a title that summarizes it from the beginning, and keep it in mind, or write it in front of you.

When Buying my Acrylic Paint, I Pick a Heavy Body Kind. I Love Buttery Paint Texture.

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Painting is like music, harmony and rhythm are very important
Painting is like music, harmony and rhythm are very important | Source
Keep Painting Fun, No Matter What

One of the main challenges for beginner artists is that the painting does not come out looking like what you had in your head. How our imagination envisions the final piece is often very different from the results on canvas.

It’s okay for the painting to take a different turn during execution, and come out different. It takes a lot of practice to be able to plan knowing exactly how to render a certain effect.

Don’t get discouraged, keep painting and don’t forget the most important thing: in painting and art making the fun is in the journey, not the destination.

Enjoy every step of it, even the mistakes, because they teach you a lot. here is a video i recommend for you to watch: