Painting in Acrylic 2: The Set Up & Cost Saving Tips

Your Palette

For acrylics, I use a paper palette. They last forever, and are easy to clean. I painted daily for a year and only used maybe 12 sheets total? The most common mistake both teachers and students make is to use plastic palettes that are actually designed for watercolor. Once the acrylic fully dries and cures, they're extremely difficult to scrape clean again. With paper palettes, you can just wait for the paint to dry and easily peal it off - reusing the same sheet several times before it begins to tear:

Most students will throw out that top sheet while the paint's still wet - because the class is over right? And the paper is disposable right? So let's trash it? This is the most common mistake with how to use paper palettes - the next classes can still use that paint, and just because it's designed to be disposable eventually, it doesn't mean they need a sparkling new sheet each lesson. Once the paint dries, you can put fresh paint right on top of it and keep mixing.

Now, every once in awhile, you may get some old acrylic paint to break into little bits and mix in with a color you're making, and those little bits can be a nuisance when applied to your canvas. This is most annoying when painting large skies with a smooth surface. If this happens, find a clean sheet of palette to remix the color, and get the bits off the canvas before it dries. But, in general, try using an old palette sheet until it's really torn and beaten before switching to a new one.

I like to put small amounts of paint in the four corners of my palette, far from each other, so there's plenty of room for mixing  (better to mix on purpose, than by accident). I use one corner for each primary color, and one for white. Note, don't get too close to the edge of the palette either, you need somewhere to hold the thing without getting paint on your hands! 

When I say small amounts of paint, consider the size of the job you are doing. Try to put out less paint than you'll need. You can always squeeze out more later, but you can't squeeze paint back in the tube. Pouring paint from a larger jug can be tricky, but practice making your dollops as small as possible - coin sized. If you pour out too much, use a brush to scoop the excess and put it back in, and be sure to keep the caps on your paint jugs! The last thing you want is all the paint in an expensive jug to dry out!

Paint is expensive and you want to conserve it. The only places paint should ever go is on your palette, on the tip of your brush (not the handle!) and on your canvas. Anywhere else is wasted money. 

Also know that paint loves to make a mess, to go everywhere but your canvas. From the cuff of your shirt sleeve to the side of your trousers, to the inside of your elbow, to the back of your backpack, the door as your backpack slides against it, and from your hands to your face and hair. Paint loves it when you spill it on the floor and let others step on it, tracking it all over the school. It's your job as an artist to prevent that from happening, for your sake and that of everyone around you. If you spill it, clean it! Before it gets worse!

Once it cures, acrylic paint is nearly impossible to wash out of clothing. So, if you do get acrylic on your clothes, wet it immediately to stop the drying process, drench it in running water and use your fingernails to scrape it away as fast as you can, adding liquid soap to get as much of it out as possible. To clean other spills - if the paint is still unmixed, scoop as much of it as possible with a brush and put it back in the jug. The rest of it, you can wipe up with a wet sponge and rinse it in the sink.

Mixing Colors

Another common mistake has to do with how students mix colors. As with most paints, acrylic colors can be weak or strong. Strong colors are highly concentrated and just the smallest addition in your mix can set off a dramatic change. 

Most blues and reds are very strong. 

White is a weaker color, and yellow even more so. 

You'd need to use larger amounts of those colors to change what you're mixing. So, why does this matter? Well, if you start with a weak color, and slowly add bits of stronger colors into the mix - treating it like how you'd put salt in a meal (not too much or you ruin it) then you're more likely to get the color you want without using up too much paint. Remember, save paint!

Your Water Cup/Can/Jar

When you paint with acrylics, it's crucial to have a glass of water handy. This is not for cleaning your brush. You clean your brush in the sink, with soap. No, this glass of water has a different, vital purpose. You use it when the paint on your palette is starting to dry out, and you still need that color. You dip just the tip of your brush in the water, shake the excess, and allow a drop of it onto your paint mixture to reactivate it, so you may continue painting with it. 

NOTE: When you do this your water stays clean. I can go days without changing my water when I use it this way - so long as it doesn't get dusty. Also note it's vital that your water stays clear and pure so that, when you do use it to reactivate a color, you don't muddy it up! Washing your brush in the glass because you're too lazy to get up and properly wash it with soap is the quickest way to spoil your painting set up, and it only means you'll have to get up anyway to replace the dirty water. So do yourself a favor, and get out of that habit.

Your Canvas

It's optional, but I personally don't like the texture of canvas, and how it gets in the way, every time I paint fine details. The solution is to sand it down, adding layers of gesso, and sanding it between layers. I go back and forth until it's reasonably smooth. Even if I get wild brush strokes with the gesso, it's more pleasing to me than the bland, uniform texture of the canvas - which can make your artwork appear printed, and fake. Having digital images printed on canvas to look like paintings has become more and more common, and it's obvious once you start checking for it.

Proper Care of Brushes

Because acrylic dries so quickly, turning into a hard plastic as it cures, it's the most destructive paint for your brushes, and requires the most constant and thorough cleaning. Unlike oil paints, with acrylic it's best to only use one brush at a time, washing it every so often, as the paint begins to congeal on the brush - you'll feel it as you mix on your palette, the hairs not behaving as they ought to, clumping together, preventing you from making free gestural lines. Adding water doesn't help. This is when you should take the brush to a sink, scrub it out under running water, and then scrub it out in your hand, using liquid soap. Repeatedly wash the brush until the color of the soap foam is a clean white - the larger the brush, the more times you need to wash with soap. Remember:

1. Washing a brush is not like washing a piece of fruit. It's not enough to rinse it! Scrub it as if it were a greasy frying pan.

2. Don't just leave the brush for hours in the water jar, water is also bad for brushes - it loosens the glue holding the hairs together to the ferrule, and the ferrule to the handle. It'll all come apart if you leave it too long.

3. Don't leave a brush sitting out with acrylic on it, or you'll quickly find it's no longer a brush, but a stick with hard plastic on one end - in other words trash. Acrylic kills brushes!

4. After you wash it, dry it with a piece of paper towel, and pull the bristles to a point. Don't leave a wet brush sitting up so that the water can trickle down into the ferrule and loosen the glue - this also leads to brushes "blossoming" so that they lose their fine point.

One of the most common examples of "magical thinking" in art class is the idea that you can use any brush, no matter how awful, to paint with. I mean, you can, I suppose, if you really want to. But the idea you're going to get great results with a brush that has blossomed into broccoli or is just a hard hunk of plastic on one end - again, I suppose you could if you're really a master, but why are you making this so much harder than it has to be? Part of teaching art is taking an exceptionally difficult challenge and making it easier for you. Having the right brush, and taking care of it is the smartest, fastest way to make painting easier. Trust me.