How to Choose Acrylic Paint
How to choose acrylic paint can be a difficult task. When buying brands of paint, you need to consider your budget and the kind of paint you truly need. Learn how to choose acrylic paint below! I give you strategies for how to choose acrylic paint that is right for you no matter what level of painting you are at.
If you are just starting out then I recommend starting with student grade paint. This paint is ideal for beginner painters and people just starting out with acrylic painting.
How to Choose Acrylic Paint -Student-Grade
Student grade paints have less pure pigment than regular artist grade paints. Since they are less pure of pigments they are less expensive. Some brands are very cheap (dollar store paint). In these brands they are more water than paint -so be careful with cheaper brands. Usually student grade paints are a good consistency, and have good colours that are true to the pigmented colour. Sometimes student grade paints don’t mix as nice, don’t have a nice consistency, not as vibrant of colours (less pigment) and can even fade faster over time than an artist-grade paint.
Brands I recommend are: Liquitex -Basics, Rheotech, Amsterdam
How to Choose Acrylic Paint- Artist Grade
Artist grade paint is more expensive, paint is often thicker (less water in the consistency), the consistency is richer/smoother, the paint will not fade as much over time, the pigments are stronger, darker, deeper colours (there’s more real pigments in the paint which is why the price is higher) You will also notice certain colours are more expensive because the pigment/mineral needed to make the paint is more rare/valuable.
Brands I recommend: Golden
Tips To Save Money On Acrylic Paint:
If paint is too cheap - it might not be the best quality to use - you might need to add more paint/layers and it will probably not be as nice of a consistency to work with. If you are trying a new paint or different brand than what I list -try buying one paint tube from the brand and test it out - buy a smaller sample size and see if you like it. Make sure to do research and read product reviews or ask other artists.
In my videos I show you how to only use the primary colours and black and white paint.
With these basic colours you can mix everything you need: (these are the colours I recommend. You want to choose colours that are as close to the primary colours as possible). Sometimes brands will call them primary red etc. as long as it looks close to a real true primary red -that’s fine!
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow
Cobalt Blue
Mars Black
Titanium White
In the video above I review the four different types of paint that I mentioned in this blog post -click on the video to take you to YouTube to watch it!
Be Strategic with Your Paint
You can also be strategic as a painter. Since painters paint in many layers to produce a painting you can use student-grade paint as your base coat for the first couple of layers and then you can use your artist-grade paint which are more vibrant and often have a nice sheen as your final coat or for painting in final details and final touches. I hope you have learned how to choose paint that is right for you. Remember as you get more experienced in painting you might want to invest and try a different brand of paint.
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