How To Paint With Acrylics

Cheap art equipment exists for those that want budget busting art materials. I always buy the cheapest, because at one time starting out I only wanted to buy cheap art equipment such as brushes and paints to practice with. The intention was to buy more expensive paints and equipment as I went along, but that isn't necessary these days with good value cheaper art materials being available to all Artists nowadays.

Brushes are a lot cheaper than they used to be with more and more shops stocking them. Even the synthetic bristle range are good enough for painting. Canvases may still be an expense, although these are fast becoming easier and more affordable when you factor in the Chinese market or some local firm that has hit on a way to produce ready made canvases inexpensively by sourcing cheaper materials to manufacture them.

The following is a work in progress like many of my paintings. I am always starting new paintings and rarely finishing them. The bare bones ideas are usually that on my canvases with ideas that visually look like just an idea. I have finished other paintings in the past with commissions and requests and so these paintings here will be updated at some point, so as to complete them and show some good Acrylic painted art.

In relation the photos below I started off selecting a nice 50x60cm Canvas which has already been primed and stretched, which does save a lot of time. I used some Burnt Sienna to paint a guideline of the Pumpkin shape and then filled in the shape with a very light coating of Burnt Sienna which could be described as a watered down glaze. I then painted some eye and mouth shapes very roughly, again as guidelines for the eyes and the mouth.

In between you can wait for the paint to dry or start to paint wet into wet which is what I did. Painting wet into wet with Acrylics you do have to work fast because of the quick drying nature of Acrylic paint. But I prefer this. It's up to you however.

I think the addition of the Red/Crimson paint really helps bring a certain warmth to the Evil Pumpkin and makes the colors seem like a Rotten Apple, which was exactly the effect I wanted to achieve. A few layers of Red were added with watered down paint which helped move the paint more freely on the Canvas.

The addition of black teeth and a tongue were extras that I didn't anticipate, but the black teeth seemed to help with the overall rotten vibe from the Halloween Pumpkin.

Again, this is a work in progress, but I will be updating this and other paintings and adding the updates to this Acrylic painting article/tutorial and I hope you gain something useful from this and several other Painting projects presented here.

Every painting is different, but the painting process rarely changes. Here I begin to layer out the shape of the creature and wanted consciously to make it more of a fun and light hearted Demon like it would dance and smile all the time and with that idea in mind this African Demon was born.

I chose Red as the primary color for the Demons body as I wanted to at some point paint some Yellow or Gold like tribal markings which would sort of look like some African Zulu tribal painting.

I mixed some Burnt Sienna (Brown) with some Red acrylic paint to paint in the shadowed areas of the Eyes and the Mouth and a rib cage

I made an Acrylic Wash of Sap Green which is just a very watery Green for the background and then some base Sap Green which looked more darker for the corners of the painting.

The painting still needs developing further with extra details, but as concepts go, this was fun to create.

Here are two videos that I have compiled the photos in steps as I went along on these ideas. The first is a Hell Hound Fox painting that I had an idea for and this really was a great idea which was based on another HellHound painting I did. I wanted the Hell fire colors to be more surrounding the Fox as if he just came out of Hell. Still a work in progress, but you can gain an insight into the Painting process.

The second video is of my very first painting commission to which I don't have the original painting anymore as I sold it. It is of a Nightmare Demon with 4 heads which was a fun concept to try and paint.

Check out the short videos below to see the paintings taking shape.

The last few things to say is that really, painting with Acrylics is a process that only the dedicated can learn. Trial and error is the way of most artistic endeavors. Being creative with different acrylic painting techniques I will most certainly be exploring more in depth in another article. But the best way to actually start painting is to just do it, because if you never ever try and do instead of not do, you'll never know.

 Whether your goal is to paint your ideas much like your pencil drawings, then painting is rather easy in this respect. Or whether you are looking to be a realistic painted with painting realistic portraits and landscapes, then a required amount of practice and patience is needed to learn the basics of color, composition and the technique of layering acrylic paint.

Acrylic painting is always fun when you start out. The colors and the way you apply the paint with brushes is forever inspiring to me and it should be to you as you go along your painting journey.