Acrylic
Painting Materials
All
the acrylic painting materials used in our portrait
of Robert Burns are Liquitex
products.
Liquitex
Acrylic paints have many great qualities:
- They
come in tubes, bottles and jars in a range of volumes.
-
They thin, mix and clean with water.
- When
dry they are permanent, waterproof, flexible, non
yellowing and resistant to ultra-violet light.
- They
have a wide range of permanent colours from which
to choose.
- They
adhere to most surfaces.
- You
do not need to use toxic solvents to clean up.
- You
can varnish an acrylic painting soon after completion
- it is recommended that you wait for six months after
finishing an oil painting before you varnish it.
- They
have a greater versatility of technique than any other
medium.
- Acrylics
are as versatile as oils when it comes to impasto
painting with a brush or palette knife and have a
jewel-like radiance when applied as transparent glazes
of colour.
- The
greatest advantage that acrylic paints have over oil
paints is their quick drying time: minutes as opposed
to days.
-
This is also their greatest disadvantage as you do
not have the time for subtle graduated blending of
colours before the paint dries. You can use retarder
mediums with acrylics to slow down the drying time
(they double it) but they do not give you
the same versatility. However, you can adapt your
technique to compensate by stippling graduated colour
as demonstrated in the background
of our portrait.
-
Therefore, if you are used to painting with oils,
you may have to adjust your painting technique accordingly
to adapt to the strengths of acrylics.
Our
'Portrait
Painting in Acrylics' lesson is an outline of one
technique of acrylic painting. Below is a list and description
of the materials used in our portrait of Robert Burns:
1)
This is the preparatory
drawing of Burns done in pencil on paper.
2)
This is the finished unframed portrait
on a stretched canvas.
3)
This is the acrylic gesso that was
used to prime the canvas.
The stretched canvas is prepared with several coats of
acrylic gesso, each sanded smooth before the application
of the next, creating a perfect surface for painting.
4)
These are the tubes of acrylic paint
used to create the image.
5)
This is the range of stiff hogs
hair and soft sable brushes used to apply the paint. All
the fine details of our portrait were painted using sizes
1, 0 and 00 sable brushes. A craft knife with a curved
blade was also used to scrape back and repair any mistakes
in painting.
6)
These are the water pots and pipettes
used for mixing the paint. Pipettes are very useful tools
for accurately measuring mixtures of water, medium and
paint.
7)
This is the palette used for mixing
small quantities of paint. When acrylic paints dry on
an acrylic palette, the paint peels off like a skin and
you rinse the palette in water. This highlights another
major advantage of acrylics over oils: cleaning up after
using acrylics is a more hygienic and pleasant task than
cleaning up after using oils.
8)
These are the bottles of acrylic
medium ( gloss and matte ) which were used for
mixing coloured glazes.
Although
you may use water to thin acrylic colours, it is best
to add some acrylic medium to maintain the durability
and elasticity of the paint. Acrylic medium comes in bottles
of gloss, and matte medium to meet a range of surface
effects. You need to experiment with various mixtures
of paint, medium and water to create the type of glazes
that suit your painting technique. Some artists will patiently
build up many thin glazes of paint to achieve a specific
effect; others want to get there fast and use thicker
mixtures.
9)
These are the airtight containers
( old 35mm. film canisters ) used to hold and
prevent glazes from drying out. During a painting you
invariably find, for a variety of reasons, that you need
use some glazes again at a later stage and it is very
difficult to mix up a perfect match. Therefore, it is
advisable to mix up more than you need and keep the remainder
in an air tight container. |
