If you've ever tried acrylic painting and felt like quitting, trust me, you're not alone. I spent years figuring out why my acrylics weren't behaving the way I wanted them to, and in this post I'm sharing everything I've learned from over a decade of painting professionally, distilled into 9 concise tips. These are exactly what I wish I'd known from the start, and a couple of them might genuinely surprise you.
I've also released a full YouTube video going over these in detail, you can watch it below:
1. Use a Wet Palette
If there's one thing that can drive you up the wall, it's watching your acrylic paint dry out on the palette before you've even finished mixing it. Acrylics dry fast, but a wet palette keeps them workable all day.
You don't need to buy a commercial version like the Sta-Wet Palette by Masterson, although that's a solid option. I use an inexpensive homemade version instead:
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Find a rimmed tray or sheet. I use an artist's butcher tray, which is enamelled and lasts for years. Mine is twelve years old.
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Add a layer of damp paper towel. Dampen it with clean water until it's wet but not dripping.
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Lay wax or parchment paper on top. This is your actual painting surface.
That's it. Your paint stays workable for hours, and you can ball up extra paint and toss it instead of rinsing it down the drain.
2. Always Paint on a Coloured Surface
This one practice completely changed the quality of my work. When I first started painting, I assumed everyone worked on a white canvas. It wasn't until I watched other artists start on coloured canvases that I realised what I was missing.
Working on a coloured surface automatically creates harmony within a painting and makes it far easier to judge your colours and values accurately. Value, or how light or dark a colour is, is one of the most important elements of realism, and our perception of it is relative to everything else in the piece.
My go-to ground colour is yellow ochre. I mix it into my gesso, apply it with a foam brush, sand it lightly for a smooth surface, and repeat the process twice. A red ground works beautifully for warmth, while burnt umber gives you a rich, neutral base. Once you start painting on a coloured ground, you won't want to go back to white canvas.
3. Understand the Difference Between Student and Artist Grade Paint
Acrylic paint is made of three parts: water, pigment, and acrylic binder. Student grade paints use less expensive and fewer pigments to mimic the look of higher end paint, so you get more binder and less colour. Artist grade paints use high quality pigments, so a little goes a long way, and the difference in consistency is genuinely noticeable.
Artist grade paint can get expensive, especially certain pigments like cadmiums, so there's nothing wrong with starting on student grade while you figure out which colours you actually reach for.
4. Build a Split Primary Palette Instead of Buying Every Colour
You don't need every colour on the shelf, just the right ones. I don't recommend pre-selected starter kits. Instead, build a split primary palette: a warm and a cool version of each primary colour.
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Cools: quinacridone magenta, cadmium yellow light, phthalo blue (green shade)
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Warms: cadmium red medium, cadmium yellow medium, ultramarine blue (red shade)
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Plus: titanium white and burnt umber as an earth tone
That's 8 colours total, and it covers nearly any subject. If budget is tight, start with quinacridone red, cadmium yellow light, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and titanium white.
5. Think in Layers
My first acrylic painting looked streaky, see-through, and nothing like I'd pictured, and I assumed I'd done something wrong. I hadn't. The first layer of acrylic paint just looks rough, and that's normal.
Treat your first layer as the foundation, not the finished result. Go back over it with another pass, and your colours will look brighter and your blends noticeably smoother. Soft blending in acrylic usually isn't true wet blending at all, it's layering, with your eye doing the work of tying the colours together.
6. Learn Which Colours Are Opaque and Which Are Transparent
Every acrylic colour has a different opacity level, and it's usually marked right on the tube. A white square means transparent, a black square means opaque, and half-and-half means semi-transparent.
Two colours can look nearly identical in the tube swatch and behave completely differently on canvas. If you need a transparent colour to cover something up, build a supporting layer underneath first, often titanium white tinted with your target colour, then glaze the transparent colour on top once it's dry.
7. Remember That Acrylics Dry Darker
The acrylic binder is milky white when wet and turns clear as it dries. That means a colour you've mixed perfectly can dry noticeably darker than it looked on the palette. If you've ever second-guessed your mixing because of this, it's not you, it's the paint.
To work with this instead of against it, mix your colours slightly lighter than you think you need, and paint dark to light, saving your highlights for the final layers.
8. Get Familiar With Acrylic Mediums
A medium changes how your paint behaves, whether that's dry time, viscosity, sheen, or transparency. A few worth knowing:
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Retarder slows dry time, though it can make layering less predictable.
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Glazing fluid slows dry time and increases transparency, ideal for glazing over opaque colours. Test it on paper first since it dries clear from a milky consistency.
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Gloss or matte medium increases flow and keeps your sheen consistent across a painting. I use matte medium to cut down on glare when filming tutorials.
9. Varnish Your Acrylic Painting for a Professional Finish
Varnishing isn't technically required, especially with lightfast paint, but it brings out your darks and highlights and makes colours look more vibrant. My favourite is Kamar by Krylon, a spray varnish that dries to the touch in about 15 minutes when applied in thin layers.
Always varnish in a ventilated space, apply thin coats rather than one thick one, and follow the shake time listed on the can, usually 2 to 3 minutes. If you're nervous about the process, practice on a study first before varnishing a painting you care about.
Final Thoughts
These are the 9 acrylic painting techniques I wish someone had handed me when I started. If you want to go deeper into colour mixing specifically, my Colour Mixing with Acrylic course walks through 26 sketchbook exercises and builds you a full colour mixing guidebook you'll use for years.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to varnish an acrylic painting? No, it's not required, especially if your paint is labelled lightfast. Varnishing is a personal choice that enhances vibrancy and brings out darks and highlights.
Why does my acrylic paint look different once it dries? Acrylic binder is milky when wet and clear when dry, so your mixed colour will dry darker than it appeared on the palette. Mixing slightly lighter than you think you need accounts for this.
What colours do I actually need to start painting in acrylic? A split primary palette of a warm and cool red, yellow, and blue, plus titanium white and burnt umber, covers nearly any subject without overspending on colours you won't use.
Is student grade acrylic paint good enough for beginners? Yes. Student grade paint uses less pigment and more binder than artist grade, but it's a perfectly reasonable place to start while you figure out which colours you reach for most.