"How To Be An Artist" Workshops
Basic Acrylic Painting

Acrylic is water based paint … it dries very rapidly. Hands and brushes are cleaned using soap & water, no solvents!

Some helpful hints I’ve learned along the way:

• Always use professional quality paint
• Always use the best brushes you can afford - Various sizes of bristle brushes are excellent for use with acrylics. You should have a good liner brush and a few good sable-like flat brushes for small details.
• Always wear painting clothes or an apron. If acrylic paint gets on your clothes, it will not come out.
• Keep a small wet kitchen sponge handy at all times. It makes an excellent eraser. Be sure to rinse the sponge before using as they come packaged with soap in them.
• Always work with a wet palette. Masterson Wet Palette is the best I’ve found. It contains a sponge underneath, which is soaked with water (rinse sponge before the first use). A special palette paper is then soaked with water and placed on top of the sponge. And, it has an air-tight lid to seal your paints until you’re ready to paint again.
• Keep a small spray bottle handy to mist your paints and to dampen your canvas.
• Acrylic paints can be used on just about any surface you can dream up … canvas, watercolor paper, furniture, walls, cabinets, clothing …
• Keep a notebook with all your painting information in one place.

When painting on canvas, I do the following:

• Study my picture or scene carefully, looking for lights and darks and shapes. I choose colors that I see, and some colors just have to be mixed as you go.
• Sketch a basic outline on the canvas … just enough to give you guidelines and keep you focused. YES, you CAN do this!
• Dampen back & front of canvas before painting with spray bottle.
• Keep two containers of water … one for washing brushes; one for wetting brushes & paint.
• Paint the painting as a whole … skipping around if you want to … it’s more fun that way!
• When adding a new color to your scene, generally, you’ll want to add that color to another area of your painting.
• KEEP BRUSHES WET!
• MIST PAINTS OFTEN!