The Silver Lining of Acrylics

Stopping By
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
8 x 8 in/20.3 x 20.3 cm
Copyright 2013

I understand why some painters complain about acrylic paint.

Acrylic dries too fast. Acrylic mediums and gels can be tricky to use properly. Acrylic is hard to blend.

But, for every complaint there is a silver lining.

You can paint as quickly as you want and make corrections almost immediately. It dries fast because it's water-based, which means it's easy to clean brushes and hands, and there's no odor.

The use of mediums allow you to paint as if you're using oil, allowing additional time to move the paint around and to provide a gloss, satin, or matte finish. Try that with plain oil.

OK, they are more difficult to blend but only relative to blending oil really. This makes one spend time to learn the best paint consistency and how to better paint lost-and-found edges, which most painters should be doing anyway.

Today's image is a little acrylic I finished this week. Not bad, I think.

If you haven't tried acrylics in a while, you will be surprised at how much fun they are to paint with.