Mixing colors

Now you've got your primary colors, you're ready to start using them to make all the other colors you want to use in your painting, like violet and orange, puce and ecru, chartreuse and plum. You'll need to use your primary colors in various mixtures to create all these other colors.

To mix a color you need, first decide which two primary colors will most likely create the color you want. For example, if you need orange, choose red and yellow. Use your brush to lift some paint onto a blank area of the palette, then if you're anal wipe off your brush on a paper towel (I don't usually bother) and use the brush to grab some of the other color you want to use, and mix the two colors together with the same brush. Mix thoroughly if you want a uniform solid color, or mix less thoroughly if you want to see "streaks" of the different colors in your painting.

It will take a fair bit of practice to get good at mixing exactly the right color, but in the meantime you'll probably get some interesting "mistake" colors which can be instructional and fun to use too.

Be careful if mixing three or more colors together, you can easily create "mud" (a very dull brownish gray) this way.

To mix more vivid, intense colors, use the versions of the primary colors that are closer together on the color wheel. For example, to make a really vivid green, use the greener yellow (the cadmium lemon yellow rather than the cadmium yellow) and, if you have two different blues, use the greener blue rather than the more purple blue (I don't recommend using it, but phthalo blue is a greener blue than ultramarine). For a duller green, you'd use cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue, the colors farther away from green (a more orange yellow and a more purple blue).

To lighten colors, you can use titanium white. Be aware that in addition to lightening, it will also wash out the color's intensity, and it also tends to cool down the warmer colors (red, yellow, and orange). Try using a little yellow when lightening red colors to keep the intensity bright and to avoid getting too pink.

To get very pale colors, start with a big glob of white and add just a tiny speck of the other color to it. You'll soon find that certain colors, especially the reds, have a lot of "tinting strength", that is, a little bit goes a long way, especially when mixing it into white.

To darken colors, I don't like using black because it tends to dull colors a lot, so that's why the primary colors I recommend in my paint-buying article tend to be dark to start out with. You can make a very nice almost-black color by mixing ultramarine blue with alizarin crimson.

You can dull down ("neutralize") a color that's too intense by using its "complement" (the color opposite it on the color wheel. For example, use a little dab of blue to tone down a too-intense orange.

You can mix a huge range of neutral colors like beiges and creams and browns by carefully mixing all three primaries (red, yellow, and blue) with white in varying proportions. This can be very challenging and takes a lot of experimentation, so be patient with this part.

You'll need to experiment to see what different colors you can mix. However, there are certain colors that can be very hard to mix from primaries. If there's a color you need that you just can't seem to get by mixing, then it's probably worth it to go back to the art store and buy a tube of it premixed. But it was worth it to figure this out for yourself, wasn't it? Otherwise, imagine how many unnecessary tubes of paint you might have bought!

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Articles on Acrylic Painting - Getting Started

Why paint with acrylics?
Basic equipment for acrylic painting
Buying acrylic paints
Painting with acrylics
Mixing colors

Painting with acrylics

So, now you've got your basic colors of paint and all your painting equipment, you're ready to start painting. Here's the basic sequence:

Set up to start painting.

Fill up your water jar and put some paper towels within reach. Grab a blank canvas (or canvasboard) and put it where you can reach it, and where it won't slide around too much. Put your brushes where you can reach them (stand them bristle end up in an empty jar).

Tape down a piece of the freezer paper to your table for your palette (or tape it to a piece of cardboard for a portable palette).

Squeeze out your paints onto your palette. Yep, that's artist-speak. You unscrew the tube of paint, gently squeeze from the base like toothpaste, and put a small glob of paint on your palette, preferably somewhere near the edge. You should leave most of the palette empty so you can mix colors in the big empty area. Squeeze out only a little bit of each color to start out, until you know how much you're likely to use. The paint dries pretty quickly, so whatever you've squeezed out is going to have to be used up or else it's wasted. I'd recommend putting the colors in a particular order (like the rainbow, perhaps) and sticking with that same order every time you paint. That way, you'll get used to where the colors are because they're always in the same places, and you'll paint more efficiently.

If the paint on your palette looks like it's trying to dry up on you, mist it with some water from a spray bottle, or sprinkle some water on it with your fingers.

Now, grab a brush, dip it in one of the paints, and start painting! You can use the colors as they are, water them down a little by dipping the brush in the water and then mixing the water into the paint, or you can mix new colors on your palette. See my paint mixing article for color-mixing tips.

On holding the brush. There are actually two different ways to hold a paintbrush. You can hold it in a "precision grip" (like holding a pen), or a "power grip" (like a hammer). If you're sitting down and painting flat on a table then you'll be using the precision grip, but be aware that the power grip is considered preferable, especially for larger paintings. To get the most benefit from a power grip, however, you'll need to be standing up, painting at an easel. Don't worry if you're not equipped to do that yet, it can wait. Just remember to switch to the power grip if you ever get the chance to paint at an easel. It will feel awkward at first, but it's really the better way to go in the long run.

Keep your brushes wet! The best way to ruin a brush is to let acrylic paint dry on it. Dried acrylic paint is plastic, hard and permanent. Don't let that happen to your brushes! All you need to do is thoroughly rinse each brush in your water jar every time you finish using it during a painting session. When I say thoroughly, I mean so thoroughly that you can't see any paint on the brush after you're done rinsing it. Lay the rinsed brushes down, still wet, in a special place while you're still painting. You might be tempted to just stand them bristle-end down in the water jar, but I don't recommend doing that for more than a couple minutes, because it'll eventually bend the bristles over. Just lay the brushes down wet (and make sure they stay wet) while you're still painting. You then wash them in soap and water when you finish painting for the day.

Clean-up

Wash your brushes. When you're finished for the day, take all the brushes you've used that day and wash each one with soap and water. Here's the method I use: swish the brush in circles against the bar of soap, like you're painting on the soap. You'll probably see a little color tinge in the lather, which means that there's still paint in the brush. Get a lot of soap worked into the bristles, then rinse the brush out by painting circles on the palm of your hand under running water. Repeat this soaping and rinsing at least 3 times for each brush to get them really clean. You'll know they're clean when no more color shows on the soap. You can shake the excess water off the brush, or gently press it off using a paper towel. Make sure the brush is in the correct shape when you put it away. Round brushes should "repoint" themselves when you flick the water off them, but you'll probably need to use your fingers to get the flat brushes to lie flat. Store your clean brushes bristle end up in an empty jar.

Clean up the mess. Untape the freezer-paper palette and carefully throw it away. I say carefully, because this is usually the part where I drip wet paint from the palette onto myself or the floor. You should also store your painting somewhere safe, where it's not likely to be trod upon or brushed against. Contrary to popular opinion, acrylics do not dry instantly, and they can remain tacky up to an hour, depending on the thickness of the paint.

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Articles on Acrylic Painting - Getting Started

Why paint with acrylics?
Basic equipment for acrylic painting
Buying acrylic paints
Painting with acrylics
Mixing colors

Buying acrylic paints

Acrylic paint comes in lots of forms, but I recommend starting with the most commonly available form, in a tube. It looks kind of like a short toothpaste tube, with a plastic screw-on cap. Tube acrylics can be pretty stiff, so you may want to soften them with a little water when you're painting.

You can find tubes of acrylic paint at your local art or hobby supply store. I strongly recommend shopping locally, at least to get started. Later, once you know what you like, you can buy online (where prices and selection are much better). My favorite online store for buying paint is Dick Blick.

Tubes of acrylic paint look a lot like tubes of oil paint, and they usually are in the same aisle as oil paints. Be careful not to buy oil paint by mistake! The word "acrylic" should be on the lable somewhere.

Acrylic paint comes in different "grades" or quality levels. The best (and most expensive) grade is "artist" grade, the worst is "craft" grade. A good compromise for the beginner is "student" grade, also sometimes called "academy" grade.

You'll probably be very limited in the selection your local store offers. That's okay, you just need a little paint to get started. Buy what they have. If they have two or more kinds, you can decide whether you want to pay for the better grade. If you think acrylic painting is going to become a serious hobby or even a career, you probably want to start out with the best grade available, so you don't have to relearn how the good stuff behaves after getting used to the cheap stuff.

It is a common misconception that you can't mix different brands of acrylics. Don't believe it! That was only true in the very earliest days back when acrylics were first introduced a half century ago. The formulations used by the different manufacturers have all become so similar over the years that you can mix brands with impunity now.

If you can afford it, buy the "real" colors, that is, colors that don't have the word "hue" in them. If it says "Cadmium Yellow Hue" it's not real cadmium yellow but some artificial formulation that is supposed to look like the real cadmium yellow. I strongly recommend using real colors rather than "hues", because real pigments are much stronger in coloration, have better coverage and mix better. However, if you're on a very tight budget, go ahead and use the "hues".

The only other reason to use the "hues" is because many of the real pigments they imitate are poisonous. Some of the brightest colors are made with cadmium, which is a poisonous heavy metal like mercury. If you use the real cadmium colors (and I suggest you do) just remember not to eat your paint. If you're painting with children maybe the "hues" are the way to go.

What colors to buy?

Now we finally get to it, the colors! Boy, when you first go to the art store and see the dozens of colors, row upon row, it sure can be intimidating.

Don't be scared! Most of those colors are what I call "lazy" colors, that is, they're colors you can mix for yourself from the basic (primary) colors. You don't need all those colors, you can make them yourself (and it's better practice anyway).

Depending on your budget, you can buy a minimum of 4 colors or a maximum of, well, the sky's the limit but I'd recommend no more than 6 or 7 to get started.

The bare-bones 4-color palette: For the absolute least number of colors, you'll need these four: titanium white, cadmium red dark (cadmium red medium is okay if they don't have dark), cadmium yellow, and cobalt or ultramarine blue. This is a very restricted palette, and you'll have trouble mixing certain types of colors with it, but if you really can't afford more colors, this will do.

The recommended 6-color palette: I would recommend a slightly expanded palette of these 6 or 7 colors: titanium white, cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson permanent (or if they don't have that, get quinadricrone crimson), cadmium yellow, cadmium lemon yellow (or any other yellow that's a cool, lemony, almost chartreuse color), ultramarine blue (or cobalt blue), and an optional earth color of your choice (such as burnt umber or yellow ochre).

What about black? There's no need for black in the basic palette. A nice rich almost-black color can be made by mixing a dark red with a dark blue. True black is kind of a flat, blah color. You don't really need it, but you're welcome to use it if you want to.

Remember, it's okay to use paints from different manufacturers if you can't get all the colors you want in one brand. I use Golden brand acrylics for most of my colors, except I use Winsor & Newton's Permanent Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Lemon Yellow, because Golden doesn't make those colors.

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Articles on Acrylic Painting - Getting Started

Why paint with acrylics?
Basic equipment for acrylic painting
Buying acrylic paints
Painting with acrylics
Mixing colors

Basic equipment for acrylic painting

To get started painting with acrylics, this is the basic equipment you'll need:
1. Paint
2. Brushes
3. Canvases
4. A palette
5. An easel
6. Paper towels
7. A spray bottle
8. Empty jars
9. Drop cloth
10. Running water and some soap

1. Paint. See my article on buying paint. You need 4-7 tubes of primary colors, as discussed.

2. Brushes. You don't need that many, but unfortunately the only way to figure out what sizes, shapes, and styles you like is to buy some and try them. You'll have to decide whether you prefer a softer synthetic brush or a harder bristle type, so I recommend getting a couple of each to try them out. (Don't bother with soft natural brushes like real sable, they're too delicate for acrylics and anyway they're expensive. Stick with the synthetics for your soft brushes.) To get started, buy a round and flat synthetic and a round and flat hog-bristle. The round should be about 1/4 to 1/2 inch diameter, the flat should be 1/2 to 1 inch across. You get to pick whether the flat brush has a squared-off end or a rounded end. Get smaller sizes if you want to paint really tiny details; go bigger if you want to do large or less-detailed paintings. You can also buy really cheap 1-to-3 inch wide housepainting brushes, if you're really strapped for cash and want to paint big. Be aware that cheap brushes will tend to shed bristles more than the expensive ones (but even the expensive ones shed occasionally!) and the bristles will splay out more instead of making a nice tight point. On the other hand, if you ruin a cheap brush it's no big deal!

3. Canvases. You gotta paint on something, it might as well be canvas: it's tough, fairly cheap, and readily available. And it's traditional. You can start with the inexpensive Fredrix canvasboards, which are just cardboard wrapped with gessoed canvas. They usually come in shrinkwrapped 3-packs. Get some different sizes, like 8x10 inches, 11x14, etc. Again, get smaller ones like 5x7 if you're keen on working really small, or get bigger sizes if that's where your interest lies. After you've experimented on these cheapo boards, you can graduate to pre-gessoed stretched canvas. For these, the Fredrix brand is universally hated amongst artists, so I recommend buying better ones in bulk from online suppliers such as CanvasPlace (shipping is fast but expensive) or Curry's (free shipping if you buy $25 but the shipping time is over a month). Of course, acrylics can be used on just about any surface you like, but I'd stick with these pre-made supports to start with. No sense spending hours and hours cutting boards, stretching canvas, gessoing and sanding when you're just starting out. Also, I like to use the "gallery wrapped" style of canvas: the canvas is stapled only on the back, not on the sides, so you can paint the sides and then the painting doesn't even need a frame (frames are expensive).

4. A palette. That is, some surface to put blobs of paint on and a place to mix colors before you apply them to your painting. There are all sorts of palettes in the art store. Don't buy any of them! They're way too much trouble (and often rather expensive). Acrylic paint will dry on these and stick like glue, requiring laborious scraping and washing every time you want to clean them. Forget it! Instead, you'll need to go to your biggest local supermarket, and head for the aisle where they have stuff like waxed paper, parchment paper, etc. What you want is called "freezer paper". It is not waxed paper, and it is not parchment paper. It's made by Reynolds, and it comes in a roll like waxed paper. You'll just tear off a section at a time, tape it down to something rigid like a table or a piece of board, and use it as a disposable palette. Much easier than scraping dried paint off a glass or plastic palette with a razorblade.

5. An easel. Wait, don't panic, you probably don't really need an easel, but if you have one, it certainly will come in handy. For smaller paintings, you can paint flat on a table (just remember to protect the table). Bigger paintings are more awkward, but you can either paint on a large table or on the floor, depending on how creaky your joints are. If you're really creaky and you want to paint pretty big, you might need to spring for a real artist's easel. The cheapest easels (which don't have a lot of fancy adjustments) can be had for about $30. Shop in your local art stores and on the internet at places like Dick Blick, Curry's, or Jerry's Artarama.

6. A roll of paper towels.

7. A spray bottle. You will occasionally want to spritz a mist of water over your palette to keep the paint from drying out. If you're really cheap you could reuse a well-washed-out empty bottle of household cleaner, or you could cough up a couple bucks for a brand new, guaranteed-clean spray bottle from a hardware or home improvement store.

8. A big water jar (and an empty jar to hold brushes). You'll need a big water jar both to rinse off your brushes and for the water to thin your paints. I use a one-gallon plastic milk bottle with the top cut off. I left the handle still attached so it's easier to carry back and forth to the sink. You want your water jar to be nice and big, so you don't have to change the water too often. You also need an empty jar to store your brushes (always stand them bristle-end up!)

9. A painter's cloth or other protective materials to keep the area you're painting in relatively clean. Acrylics dry quickly, and once they're dry they're permanent. If you're painting on nice carpeting or on the dining room table, you'll want to protect these surfaces from the inevitable drips and slops.

10. Somewhere nearby you'll need running water (like a sink, or at least a hose!) and some soap (a bar of hand soap is perfect).

Now, once you buy your paints, you're ready to start painting.

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Articles on Acrylic Painting - Getting Started

Why paint with acrylics?
Basic equipment for acrylic painting
Buying acrylic paints
Painting with acrylics
Mixing colors

Why paint with acrylics?

Acrylic paint is a relative newcomer to the art scene. Developed early in the 20th century, acrylics started to be used by some avant-garde artists in the 1950s, but technical problems kept the new type of paint from being widely accepted in the highly conservative art world for decades. Most of the problems first encountered have long since been solved, but even now you will meet people who consider this newcomer inferior to oil paint's prestigious 500-year history.

However, acrylics are slowly gaining acceptance in the art world. There are some conservation issues still to be overcome with acrylics (not unlike oil paintings, which are also quite difficult to preserve indefinitely), but acrylics are being used by fine artists in ever growing numbers. The medium's versatility, the inherent durability of the finished product, and the huge range of color and texture possibilities make it one of the most exciting painting media available to artists today.

Acrylics offer the beginning artist an easy entree into the world of art. Unlike oil paints, acrylics can be used without smelly solvents, clean up with soap and water, and require only very ordinary and inexpensive tools to get started. Ready to try painting with acrylics? Let's go!

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Articles on Acrylic Painting - Getting Started

Why paint with acrylics?
Basic equipment for acrylic painting
Buying acrylic paints
Painting with acrylics
Mixing colors