How to Improve Your Acrylic Painting Skills
Acrylic painting has been around for over 200 years. It’s incredible that the technique has managed to evolve over time, and is still a sought-after medium today. There are many ways to improve your acrylic painting skills, from understanding your paints and their properties, to learning the basics of color theory. In this article, talented acrylic painter Moshe Stahl, will teach you the best ways to improve your acrylic painting skills and give you some ideas on how you can apply them in future projects.
The Importance of Acrylic Paint
Moshe Stahl indicates that acrylic paints are a popular medium because they’re easy to use, low-cost, and versatile. They also dry quickly and can take many different forms and textures with a broad range of colors.
However, acrylic paints can be inconsistent in quality. Moshe Stahl warns that you’ll need to be careful when choosing which paint you buy and do some research online about what is good for your specific needs. This article will show you the importance of spending the extra money on better-quality paint so that you can improve your skills, too.
How to Improve Your Acrylic Painting Skills
Moshe Stahl shares that the first step is understanding your paints. Acrylic paint is made up of pigments that are suspended in a binder. The type of binder determines the properties and behavior of the paint. There are three main types of binders: acrylic, alkyd (oil based), or enamel (metal based). According to Moshe Stahl, you also need to know how to mix two or more colors together as well as how to make transparent and translucent shades. If you want to be able to tell what you’re painting, knowing how color theory works is crucial. For example, if you want a sunset, it’s important to understand color wheel concepts like complementary colors, triad rules, and analogous colors. Understanding these concepts will give you an insight into where certain darks and lights fall on the color wheel for different objects.
Once you have the basics down, try practicing with some simple projects before tackling more complicated ones. In Moshe Stahl’s opinion, it’s always easy to improve your skills when you can see progress.
