Acrylic Painting Techniques

Innovation is prominently seen in the art of painting, drawing, and sketching. Artisans and painters, all across the world, use a new technique of painting with almost every work of art that they generate. One of the youngest forms or techniques of painting was innovated in the decade of 1950s. Acrylic painting has gained widespread popularity and many different methods and techniques, such as acrylic landscape painting, have been created by artisans.

The first acrylic paint was magna paint which was produced by Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden in the year 1947. This paint was eventually reformulated in 1960 and is the basis of all the modern acrylic paints. You might ask, what are acrylic paints made of?

Acrylic paints are fast-drying paints that are principally made of acrylic polymer emulsion and have pigments suspended within the emulsion. The specialty of these paints is that they get diluted with the help of water, but once they dry up, they become waterproof.

This characteristic of the paint has been prominently used in different abstract paintings. Another prominent feature of these paints is that they dry up very quickly.

Painters and artisans almost never run out of ideas when it comes to painting with acrylic colors. Free tips, tricks, and ideas are always available on the Internet, but it is always advisable to master the conventional and basic techniques.

The quick drying of the acrylic paint is often considered to be a big drawback. These paints also dry faster than normal oil paints when used on a canvas. The technique to prevent the acrylic paint from drying at a faster rate is to spray it lightly with water.

This keeps the upper surface of the paint moist, and you can easily modify parts of this surface. Some artisans also use pallets that retain moisture. In cases where such pallets are not available, sheets of grease-proof paper or wet color paper can also be used.

Diluted forms of acrylic paints can be easily used for glazing and washes, which have a more fluid texture. Water and paint can be used in proportion to create appropriate fluid textures. The mixture of paint and water is commonly known as a 'glaze'. The proportion of water and acrylic paint can be changed to produce different textures. Some famous textures are opaque glaze and translucent glaze.

Painting glazes is another commonly used technique, where the glaze is made by diluting acrylic paint with the help of water. This combination of water and paint is used to add a depth to the painting. The 'depth' is achieved in the painting by making a translucent glaze that can be painted over the main subject of the painting, which gives a 3 dimensional appearance to the painting.

Pour painting is one of the most innovative acrylic painting techniques. The paint is first diluted with water. Which makes it translucent and almost transparent. The mixture of paint and water is then artistically poured over the canvas.

In some paintings this method is used to give passive finishing touches to the painting, where the subject of the painting has already been completed. Some very skilled painters have used pour painting as a medium of painting, instead of using pour paint to give the finishing touches.

These are the basic techniques involved which can be innovated further and, according to many artists and painters, mastering these basics is worth the effort. One can also use many more innovative painting ideas with the help of these methods.