13 Acrylic Painting Tips You Must Know As A Beginner

If you’re just beginning with acrylic paint in your art journal, you’re going to love these acrylic painting tips for beginners.

Some of them seem so silly and small at first, but trust me, each one of these tips can change how you see acrylic painting and can help you improve your painting skills.

That said, you’ll find tips about brushes, tools, neat techniques, etc.

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Acrylic paint is like plastic, so when it dries, you can work on it with layers without disrupting the layers beneath. On the other hand, watercolor is different because it’ll always react to water, so painting layers is a bit different than with acrylic paint.

It’s obvious that you must use water with watercolors, but this isn’t the case with acrylics. I mostly use them with no water at all. This creates wonderful texture and bold, saturated colors.

Another difference I usually make is the use of paintbrushes. For watercolor, I mostly use round brushes, but with acrylics, I think flat ones are better. Round brushes just can’t have control over the thickness of acrylics because they’re softer than flat brushes.

So, if you’re working on a project, have a jar of water and keep your brushes in it while you work. This way, cleaning won’t take too much time away from your work and will keep the brush wet and ready to use.

However, when you finish your work, then clean the brushes properly.

If acrylic paint dries on your brush, you can use acetone or other appropriate cleaning solution. But just be careful because they can be toxic if you take in a lot of fumes.

I’ve been art journaling for years now, and I’ve never felt the need to buy expensive artist-quality brushes. My art journals are for fun and learning, I’m not going to sell my work or exhibit it.

That’s why I want you to feel free to buy brushes with this in mind.

When it comes to acrylic painting, having a few different brushes is a great way to practice acrylic painting and diversify your strokes.

For example, I have about 5 larger and 5-7 medium or smaller size brushes.

I use larger ones for bigger areas, of course, especially if I’m making an acrylic background.

You can use many different tools to create texture with acrylic paint. Some of them are kitchen sponges, aluminum foil, painting knives, etc.

If you want to create texture with acrylic paint, don’t add water to it. Water just thins it down and then it’s impossible to create the same texture.

Well, on many unlucky occasions, this impatience led to ruining the backgrounds or faces I was painting.

I just didn’t let the paint dry long enough.

Acrylic paint generally dries fast, but that doesn’t mean you can work on it a minute after you’ve put it on the paper.

I love using my heat gun because it doesn’t blow away my stuff, which the hairdryer will do if you don’t lower the fan settings. The heat gun dries things so quickly that somehow it became a must-have among my supplies.

Finally, be careful when you’re creating texture with thick layers of paint. These things take a long time to dry, more than 20 minutes in my case.

Experiment with the brand you have and see how long it takes to dry because different brands may have different drying characteristics.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with using the paints as they are, especially because there are so many different tones and shades to choose from.

But when you begin mixing colors and using them this way, you learn new things every single time.

You learn what colors mix well, which ones look like crap together, and best of all, your images display a variety of colors and create more interest.

Now, imagine the possibilities.

Besides using them for painting on paper or canvas, you can paint with them over plastic, glass, rocks, metal, etc.

What about making your own pots for flowers, or decorating a plain plastic container or a glass jar?

Here’s what I did.

I have a stand-alone bookshelf that was entirely white, and I could remove the back of the shelves. So, I removed each of the backsides and painted them as if they were my canvas boards. I painted them with acrylic paint and they look awesome.

If you’re going to do some of these things, you’d maybe want to seal your surface with an appropriate sealer, so that chunks of paint wouldn’t fall off if you use those items all the time.

This doesn’t bother me most of the time because I see my journals as places to practice, experiment, and have fun. And most of all, make a mess. So, sometimes I protect pages like this, other times I don’t. The only thing that matters is how you see it and if you want to make less mess.

I’d usually do this if I plan on using so much acrylic paint on my background that it could easily glue two pages together at the edges, and I don’t want that.

Here’s why.

Acrylic paint acts like adhesive, so taking two pages apart would be like tearing them after you’ve glued them together.

And how quirky and cute are fingers covered in paint? One of the reasons I love painting so much: playing like a child. And finger painting lets you do that, especially with acrylic paint because they’re creamy and soft.

Blending acrylic paint with fingers is something you must try.

Ordinary pens don’t write well on acrylic background, especially if there’s texture. You might clog the pen. Rather, try a marker or a thin, small-size brush to write with.

When I want to write or doodle on acrylic paint, I almost always use my Posca Paint markers and pens. They don’t mind that and work perfectly.

If you remember that acrylic paint is actually plastic, any marker that writes on plastic would be a good choice.

Check out which pens are good for using on acrylic paint in this article about the best pens for art journaling.