If you’re thinking about picking up a paintbrush for the first time, you might be wondering: should I start with acrylic or oil paint? As someone who works with both, I’ve got some thoughts. While both mediums have their strengths, one is definitely more beginner-friendly than the other—at least when it comes to ease of use and accessibility. If you're trying to decide between acrylic vs. oil paints, there a number of factors that come into play.
So let’s break it down.
Acrylic Paint: The Beginner’s Best Friend?
Acrylic was the first medium I learned, mostly because it was the only one I knew existed. I figured you had two options: acrylic or watercolor—end of story. Turns out, I was missing a pretty big one (hi, oil paint).
But I’m actually glad I started with acrylic, because it’s one of the easiest mediums to work with when you’re just starting out. Here’s why:
✅ It’s affordable – My first acrylic paints were from the dollar store. Not saying they were great, but they got me started. Even high-quality acrylics are relatively inexpensive compared to oils.
Artist grade acrylic paints are more expensive than student grade acrylic paints, but arguably provide more bang for your buck. They last longer, have a higher pigment load, and you need less paint, since they have more pigment and less binder. You can also begin collecting your professional level paints by starting with lower series numbers and working your way up...the lower the series, the lower the cost. Start with affordable colors like Titanium White, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue to begin your stash.
✅ It’s easy to clean – No harsh chemicals, no fancy cleaners—just water and soap (unless it gets on your clothes, in which case…good luck). Having to clean your brushes after a long painting session won't take you long, unlike with oil paints.
Not having to spend extra time cleaning your brushes makes a huge difference. I like to keep a small bar of soap in an old cream cheese container. I add some water to the container, run the brush along the surface of the soap, then rinse. I dump the water out of the container and let it dry to keep it from getting scuzzy, and rinse any paint off of the surface of the soap. Then it's good to go!
✅ It dries fast – Sometimes a little too fast (more on that later), but for a beginner, it means you don’t have to wait days for your painting to dry before moving on. However, this requires thinking in layers in order to create effective blends and opacity levels, since the first application of acrylic paint is often streaky.
Acrylic is great for quick studies, experimenting with color, and just getting comfortable with putting paint on a surface. But is it perfect for beginners? Not exactly. This is where our acrylic paint vs. oil paint takes another turn...
Where Acrylic Can Be Frustrating
For all of its beginner-friendly qualities, acrylic does have some quirks that can trip you up:
⏳ It dries fast – You get maybe a few minutes of blend time before it sets, and once it’s dry, there’s no reworking it. If you try, you might end up lifting the paint and making things worse. The drying time can be a major source of frustration, especially for blends.
🎨 It dries darker – This one drove me nuts when I first started. The color you mix on your palette will always look lighter than what ends up on your canvas. Why? Because acrylic’s binder is milky when wet but dries clear, which shifts the final color slightly. That means you're not doing anything wrong, it's just the chemical makeup of the paint, and you may have to make some slight adjustments in order to accommodate the darker dry (such as lightening your values during the mixing).
🌊 Blending is… a challenge – Even with slow-drying mediums, blending acrylics smoothly takes some serious strategy (or just a willingness to embrace sharp edges). I usually use layers to soften my blends, and to create optical blends instead of wet-on-wet blends. Carefully stacked layers can create the illusion of a blend, even though what you're seeing is two dried layers stacked on top of each other.
So while acrylic is easier in many ways, it’s not always forgiving. If you’re okay with working fast and rolling with the punches, it’s a great place to start.
For a great beginner friendly tutorial for painting with acrylic paint on paper, check out my YouTube video below:
What About Oil Paint?
If acrylic is the fast-paced sprinter of the painting world, oil is the chill marathon runner. It’s slow, methodical, and incredibly forgiving—which actually makes it easier in some ways. So when we're looking at oil paint vs. acrylic paint, here are a few key differences:
🎨 Blending is effortless – Want those buttery soft gradients? Oil makes it happen. This is thanks to the longer drying time of oil paint, as well as richer opacity levels due to the oils themselves instead of an acrylic polymer.
⏳ You have time to work – No racing against the clock here. Oils stay wet for hours (sometimes days), giving you plenty of time to adjust, rework, and refine. Long drying times can be wonderful...unless you're anxious to layer, as it then becomes challenging.
🎯 Colors dry true – Unlike acrylic, oil paint looks the same wet and dry, so what you mix is what you get. Acrylics dry through evaporation, while oils dry through oxidation, which is a chemical process that allows the colors to remain true as they dry. Evaporation in acrylics, on the other hand, turns the acrylic binder from milky to transparent, so it shifts the colors (sometimes dramatically, especially in tints).
Oil paints sound pretty dreamy, right? It is—but there are some reasons why oil isn’t always ideal for beginners.
❌ It’s messier – Oil paints don’t clean up with water. You’ll need brush cleaner (or Murphy’s Oil Soap, my new favorite). My first time painting with oil, I spent over half an hour at the sink trying to get my brushes clean with just water, and it was an absolute fail. You absolutely require special brush cleaners, although mineral spirits are no longer required with new advancements in soap.
❌ It has an odor – Not terrible, but if you use certain mediums (like Liquin), you’ll want good ventilation. Even though I find the smell of Liquin manageable, many artists find that it gives them a headache. I also find that many of the paints have an earthy smell to them, since they're often made from natural materials and pigments like walnut oil and burnt umber. I like it, but it can be strong.
❌ It takes forever to dry – If you’re impatient, waiting days for a layer to set can be frustrating. Some oil paint colors take much longer to dry than others, extending the drying process by days and even weeks.
Colors like yellows and whites, which require a non-yellowing oil like safflower or poppy, can be especially long with their dry times. I work with this by either adding a smidge of Liquin or Galkyd to speed up the dry time, or by using a faster drying formula (like M. Graham & Co's Fast Dry Formula Titanium White) to speed things along.
The below painting, "Opalescent Lake," was painted using oil.
So, Which One Should You Start With?
If you’re brand new to painting and just want to jump in without overcomplicating things, acrylic is the way to go. It’s accessible, dries quickly, and lets you practice without a huge time commitment. I personally started with acrylic paint, and I wouldn't have done it any other way.
If you’re more patient and love the idea of smooth blends and deep colors, oil paint might be worth exploring—just know that it comes with a bit of a learning curve.
The beautiful thing about practicing with both oil and acrylic is that you can actually layer them together. As long as you layer oil over acrylic and never the other way around, you can start with an acrylic underpainting, get the fast dry time, then layer a smooth oil blend on top. I will sometimes do that, depending on subject, and the results are wonderful.
At the end of the day, both are fantastic, and there’s no rule saying you have to pick just one. Even though this blog post is title acrylic vs. oil (or oil vs. acrylic), both are wonderful mediums and will provide you with marvelous opportunities for application. Try them both and see which feels right for you!
The above painting was painted in acrylic using a limited palette of ultramarine blue, titanium white, burnt umber, cadmium yellow medium and alizarin crimson.
By the way, if you're interested in learning more about acrylic painting, you can download my FREE ebook here, perfect for beginners. Or, if you'd like to take it a step further, you can enrol in my Painting Flowers in Acrylic course. I'd love to see you there!
PS You should definitely check out my brand new Color Mixing with Acrylic course. It's over 15 hours of instruction, with 70+ lessons and lifelong access to our online painting community. Check it out here.
If you're interested in reading more, check out my blog post on color mixing here.
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