Sanders - Quick & Clever Acrylics

Beginning your first real acrylics painting can be a little daunting, a bit like getting on a bicycle for the first time; all wobbly and hesitant. The difference is, with painting it does not hurt so much when you make a mistake! I would not worry too much about the occasional artistic disaster. You do not have to show your work to anyone else if you do not want to; it will be between you and me! Mistakes are all part of the learning process, and the important thing is to keep practising.

I have been using acrylics ever since I went to art college in the sixties. You have to enjoy working with a particular material, and feel confident that you can make adjustments as you go along. For someone starting out in painting this is even more important, and acrylics are the most forgiving and versatile of all the materials available.

Acrylics are quick drying, so you do not have to wait for days before applying the next layer; and you can simply paint over your mistakes. There is no need for smelly solvents either; everything cleans with water.

All paints consist of a pigment (the colour) and a binder that holds the paint together.

Basically, all paints have a similar range of pigments in them; it is only the binder that makes it a watercolour, an oil paint, or an acrylic. The binder in acrylic paint is a polymer, which is a kind of liquid plastic. The paint is mixed with water and when the water evaporates the paint sets to become a very permanent, flexible layer, which can be wafer thin, or as thick as you want. It dries quickly, is not washed off by other paint being put on top, and can be made to dry slowly, or made more fluid, by the addition of retarding or flow-improving mediums. This versatility gives acrylics a huge advantage over watercolours, which can easily be washed off when other colours are brushed on top, and over oil paint, which may take up to a week to dry.

Acrylics are flexible and versatile!

Another advantage is that you can use acrylics in many different ways. If you like the look of oil paintings and would like to work with thick, opaque paint to make textured marks, you can. If you admire the delicacy and softness of watercolours you can use your acrylics in a transparent way, with thin washes.

Acrylics can be opaque and textural

or they can be thin transparent washes.