ACRYLIC PAINTING TECHNIQUES: Acrylic Painting Techniques for Beginners!

(music)

I'm using a piece of watercolor paper that's 11 by 14 and divided into 13 boxes.

The size of the boxes really doesn't matter too much.

You can find a complete list of supplies and materials used in the description, but for

now I am just putting some Liquitex Basics acrylic paint on a piece of palette paper.

Any colors really work for this, and then I have some different brushes.

Some of my brushes here are a little bit more what I call bristly, meaning stiffer bristles,

and some of my brushes have a lot smoother bristles, so try a variety of paintbrushes

with these techniques.

All right, so dry brush and scumbling.

I'm going to start with scumbling using a paintbrush, taking just a little bit of paint

just on the bristles and actually blotting quite a bit of it off and tapping some on

a paper towel. But scumbling is just little circular motions with a dry paintbrush, and

depending on your pressure, depending on the amount of paint, you're going to get different

effects. But this can be really nice for kind of hazy skies, different things, so play around

with that. And then dry brush is just using a really dry bristly paintbrush and seeing

the strokes of your paint essentially because of that paintbrush. So different paintbrushes

will have different effects.

I really love to layer the dry brush with different colors.

Sometimes I'll let a little area of that dry, and then I'll layer it on again, but have

fun playing around with dry brush.

Try a ton of different styles of paintbrushes to see what you like.

(music)

So sgraffito is a technique where you will first lay down a layer of paint, any color,

and then let that paint dry.

Once it's dry, paint another layer of paint on top of it, and I like my paint to be nice

and thick here.

Then you're going to take the back of a paintbrush and etch into the paint to reveal the color

underneath.

Now, you can use other things to scratch into the surface too.

I've used combs, brushes, you can use Q-tips, you can use paperclips, a dull pencil, really

anything, but play around with different combinations, play around with different colors, try different

things, and just essentially scratch into the surface.

It's a really fun way to create texture with acrylic paint.

(music)

Wet-on-wet is a technique traditionally used for watercolor, and it's wet-on-wet because

you start with water, just dip your paintbrush in some clean water, put it on the paper,

and then you're going to tap your acrylic paint into the water.

Essentially, acrylic paint can act as watercolor.

Now, you may be concerned, if I water my paint down too much, will it not bind to the paper?

Will it crack?

There is a longer answer to that question, but to keep it simple, I will say, as long

as you're using high-quality acrylic paint, like Liquitex, Golden, any of those brands,

your paint is going to be fine.

Acrylic paint can be watered down to create washes.

It's a great way to paint.

Try it.

It will adhere to canvas.

It will adhere to watercolor paper.

You can see here I'm blotting a little bit, so sometimes I'll blot it.

If it's too wet, try letting it dry for a bit and then adding another layer.

Here I'm rolling on some more water and then tapping more acrylic paint into it.

You can see this way, it's a little bit more saturated.

You can build up layers this way.

It's really fun for skies, galaxies, all sorts of things.

(music)

So, glazing is a technique that, first, you start with dry paint.

Now, I'm just going to paint a swatch for this example, but you can glaze on top of

any area of paint that's already dry on your paper or canvas.

So, just painting this area, letting it dry, forgot my label too, so let's label it glazing.

And then, you can also think of this as an overlay too, but let your paint dry.

Then you can glaze a couple different ways.

So, one is creating a wash, just like we did with wet on wet, and then applying that wash

over top of the existing dry paint, so you can see that wash kind of has a translucent

effect over the dry, more opaque paint and creates a different effect.

Now, you can use matte medium.

Liquitex actually makes glazing medium as well, and that gives you a little bit of a

different effect than water.

So, if you don't have mediums, you can always use water, but I often like to use glazing

medium because it gives it a little bit of a shine.

And then, the matte medium is a matte finish, but it just has a different quality than the

water.

It's just a different sort of effect.

It almost covers it a little bit more even with the matte medium.

(music)

Impasto is a technique in which you apply the acrylic paint with a palette knife.

If you don't have a palette knife, you could also use like a popsicle stick, but basically,

you can kind of scoop it on, you can scrape it off.

It's all about texture with Impasto, so you can try different colors.

You can kind of blend it, layer it, scratch it off, do all sorts of things.

If you kind of scratch it too, it almost creates like a cool stained effect on your paper,

so sometimes I like to do that.

I think that can be fun.

You can also let it dry for a little bit.

I've mentioned that with some other techniques.

Acrylic paint is so layerable, so sometimes letting it dry and then building it up creates

a totally different effect than if you layer it all up while it's still damp too.

But Impasto is super fun.

It's how you get lots of texture.

Acrylic paint dries too, and it really keeps that texture, again, if you're using really

high quality acrylic paint.

So modeling paste.

Modeling paste dries.

It's white and dries rock solid, so you can get some really awesome texture.

You can scoop it with a palette knife, a brush, popsicle stick, whatever you have will work.

I'm scooping some on my palette paper here and mixing it with the paint.

So this is one option.

You can take the modeling paste, mix it directly with the paint, and apply it.

You could do an Impasto effect like this, or you could paint it on with a paintbrush.

It really depends what you want to do.

(music)

You can also use the modeling paste just as it is too, and apply it to your paper,

to your canvas, it'll adhere to wood, you know, whatever your surface is, and you can

then apply it, let it dry so it builds up that texture, and then you can coat paint

over top of it that way too.

So two different ways you can use the modeling paste.

(music)

Stencils are an awesome way to add texture with acrylic paint, so you can use really

any type of stencil that you may have.

I've got letters, patterns, different textures.

If you don't have any stencils, you could also take a piece of cardboard and then just

cut out some different patterns with a knife, and that's a fun way to do it too.

And then I like to use a more bristly type paintbrush and just kind of tap the paint

into the stencil.

You can layer it, you could blend it, try different colors, you could layer stencils

over top of each other.

Sometimes I'll create kind of like an abstract background for a painting this way, and I'll

start by just kind of layering stencils, letting it dry, and then maybe layering some more.

So it's a really fun way to play around with acrylic paint and add texture.

(music)

Sponge is another way to add texture, and you can also use a foam paintbrush if you

don't happen to have a sponge, but I've used like kitchen sponges before.

This is like a sea sponge, so really any type of sponge.

You can just kind of tap the acrylic paint on.

You could use multiple colors together to create more of a blended effect, which is

what I'm doing here, and you can see it's softer when you do it this way versus if you

let the paint dry for a little bit and then try layering it on with a sponge. Again, you'll

notice you'll get a different effect.

It's going to build it up, make it more opaque.

You're seeing more texture.

It's not as soft this way.

(music)

For masking, you could use masking tape, you could use washi tape.

I like to use scissors just so I can trim it, cut it after the fact.

If you're using masking tape, try putting it on your sleeve to remove some of the stickiness

from the tape because you don't want your paper to rip.

If you're using canvas, you don't really have to worry about that.

But for actual watercolor paper, that's a little trick I like to use.

But you could just basically masking is saving the white of the paper and you could paint

over top of it. So you could create a pattern, a design, you could write letters, whatever

you want to do, and then you can apply the acrylic paint over top of it.

And you could, I mean, really do whatever.

You could also combine one of the other techniques if you wanted to, like sponge or you could

paste over top or, you know, whatever you decide to do.

I'm just going to kind of layer some different blues over top and then one thing I think

that's helpful I'll mention and you can decide for yourself, but I feel like it's best to

remove the tape when the paint is still kind of wet.

Because the edges just usually seem cleaner to me.

But, you know, you could try some of both.

Maybe I'll try some while it's wet and then I'll leave some on and wait for it to dry

and then I can compare and see which is better.

(music)

You may need to use a paintbrush to clean it up a little if the tape, if the paint does

get under the tape a little bit.

That's okay.

(music)

Drips and splatters are always fun to do.

So for drips, you just want to water down your paint and just sort of kind of tilt your

paper a little bit and let the paint run.

You could let it dry and then build up layers of drips if you want.

For splatters, try different brushes.

You know, different brushes work better.

I think some of the stiffer, bristlier brushes tend to work better and you can just kind

of flick your finger and then get that splatter effect, which is really fun.

Here's another example of a drip too.

So again, just kind of adding water into the paint and then tilting your paper around to

just kind of try to control it as much as you can.

I mean, I guess the whole point of a drip too is that it's sort of organic and flows,

but you can control it a little bit and then, you know, always you could blot it up too.

So here's this brush.

Like I found out, it didn't work super well.

Either did this one.

Toothbrushes work awesome too, and you'll get like a really cool splatter effect.

So try different brushes.

Try a toothbrush.

Try some drips.

It's awesome.

So hard edge and soft edge.

Soft edge just means that the edge is soft.

It just kind of fades or blends more into a background.

You know, typically a soft edge is easier to see when you're actually painting something.

But, you know, just to kind of illustrate this the best I can here, you can kind of

just use your brush to kind of bring out the paint a little bit.

So it's not like such a bold, crisp line, whereas hard edge is that crisp line.

So you know, maybe try an angled brush or a flat brush.

You might even want to add just a little bit of water into your paint too.

Sometimes that helps you clean up the edge.

You can kind of layer it a little bit, but really that's all that's referring to.

And there's different ways to achieve a hard edge and soft edge depending on what you're

trying to paint.

But, you know, think about like clouds in the sky.

When you're looking at clouds, some edges are really soft as they blend into the sky

and some edges are hard and crisp, you know.

So it's good to kind of pay attention to the different types of edges.

And here's just another example of this.

And again, if you look at a painting, any acrylic painting really, you're going to see

these types of edges.

And the more art you look at, the more examples that you'll have.

So I always think that's a really good idea.

But yeah, play around with your edges, practice softening.

You could always use a dry brush to blend or soften the edges too after the fact.

That's always a really good way to blend.

(music)

So gel medium is an acrylic medium that's basically clear acrylic paint.

So it's going to preserve the thickness of your acrylic paint while essentially lightening

the color a little bit, making it a little bit more translucent, but still, again, keeping

the thickness of acrylic paint.

So gel medium is awesome.

I love using it.

You could apply it with a palette knife to get kind of some impasto effects if you wanted

to, or you could apply it with a paintbrush.

Layered just refers to applying the paint on your paper and mixing it directly on your

paper beforehand.

So you could apply it kind of like this, lay down a color, then kind of brush in another

color.

And you just get a different effect this way, rather than mixing and layering all your colors

ahead of time.

So you could let areas of it dry if you wanted to, and then kind of build up some layers

that way.

You know, kind of however you want to do it.

But it's fun to sort of mix the paint directly on your paper rather than ahead of time.

Like I said, you just get a different effect that can be really fun with acrylic paint.

(music)

I would love to see photos of your acrylic painting technique charts.

So if you do one, take a photo and post it in the comments below.

Thanks so much for watching this tutorial.

I hope you enjoyed it.

If you have other ideas for future tutorials, please let me know in the comments as well.

Please like and subscribe.

Thanks!

(music)