Acrylic Painting Articles

How to get started with Acrylic Painting

By: Nika Tay Hui Min


You would be surprised to find that acrylic painting is a fairly newcomer in the artworld – having just been around since the 1940s. Widely regarded as a beginner friendly medium, no less, acrylic painting continues to be a highly accessible and versatile artform favored by seasoned to professional painters alike.

Due to its’ relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use, easy-to-clean-up and forgiving medium (easier to paint over mistakes), ideal for the art enthusiast who have zero experience in their first painting class. At the same time, acrylic provides a great foundation to foray as well as develop a broad range of art techniques while giving flexibility to experiment with various techniques and even mixed media art.

1. Set aside a time and budget 

Before you start creating any artwork, it is good to know plan and think through how much time and money you are investing and setting aside for your new-found art hobby. Setting aside a time and space to allow yourself to freely create and be intentional in creating is important. And after allocating an estimated budget, let’s get down to the essentials of acrylic painting.

2. Acrylic Supplies – “Behind every masterpiece is a great set of supplies!”

Acrylic Paints

Buying paint can feel like an overwhelming task with so many colors to choose from. In general, getting a good selection of primary colors (red, blue, yellow) is a good start! Include earthy tones into your color kit white, black will be more than sufficient for your initial paints.

It’s also important to note that not all paints are made the same, craft paints though cheap comes at a trade-off in terms of quality and coverage. So, invest in quality student grade or professional grade paints.

If not, to save you the mind-boggling hassle of selecting and choosing your own paints, buy our high-quality yet affordable Pebeo Studio Acrylic Paint Set complete with 12-colors!

Paint Brushes

Similar to selecting paints, getting a varied set of paintbrushes with different tips and sizes is needed for giving your artwork an even background, good coverage to detailing work. You can also purchase our brush set perfect for both acrylic and watercolor painting.

Tip: As acrylic paint dries quickly, start off with painting large shapes first! Painting the larger shapes and outline helps you to see the bigger picture and overall artwork.

Canvas – The world is your canvas!

Here’s the good news! Acrylic paints are so versatile you can paint them on almost any surface from the usual canvas, acrylic paper and even tote bags!

3. Learn from a professional – Sign up for an art class!

Even after getting all the essentials and supplies, watching online tutorials and know-how tips, the feeling of staring at a blank canvas and not knowing where or how to start can feel frustrating, if not daunting! Then perhaps, learning from a professional and taking up our Art lessons for adults will take you one step further!

If you are someone who needs that extra helping hand to guide and empower you along your art journey or the occasional painter looking to brush up your craft and techniques, Artpazionate’s specially curated Acrylic Painting Classes will do just that.

Ultimately, art is more than just arriving at the completed product. It is in the entire process from broadening your technical knowledge, conceptualizing an image, to sketching, choosing the colors and thereafter, painting your imagination into reality. That is true art.

For more info, check out our Acrylic Painting Classes here: https://www.artpazionate.com/adults-and-teens-art/#Acrylic

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