Acrylic Painting for Beginners by Lisa Solomon

Beginner | 2 hours 21 min

Taught by Lisa Solomon

In the first class, Lisa Solomon provides a thorough overview of acrylic painting tools and materials. You will learn how to use different brushes, blend your paints using palette knives and brushes and how and when to add water or various mediums to your paint to achieve different effects. Follow along as Lisa demonstrates how to use basic techniques to paint a nectarine, and then learn about cleaning and caring for your brushes so they last for years.

Learn how to:

Discern the differences between various kinds of paint
Add mediums to paint
Mix water into paint
Make marks with different brushes
Blend with added medium and using a palette knife
Blend paint colors
Create a painting of a real life object
Properly clean up your brushes after use

Chapters

Introduction
Overview00:41

Materials
Materials06:27

Acrylic Painting 101
Paints and other mediums08:20
Using and caring for brushes05:41
Blending color tints with pallete knives03:49
Blending to create new colors08:16

Putting It All Together
Create a painting12:43

Materials

Here’s what you’ll need:

(Note: the materials presented here are a great starter kit, but you don’t need everything listed here to get started)

Grumbacher Academy Acrylics 10-Color Set (includes Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Yellow Ochre, Thalo Green, Thalo Violet, Thalo Blue, Mars Black, Titanium White)

2 additional colors of choice (Lisa uses Crimson Red and Sap Green)

Assorted plastic palette knives

Palette of your choosing (Lisa uses a 20-well rectangular plastic palette, enamel tin palette and Strathmore palette paper)

6-piece set of synthetic brushes for acrylic paint (Lisa recommends a mix of the following: wash, fan, flat, angular flat, round, pointed round, filbert, detailed round)

Medium or large brushes (Lisa uses size 12 flat wash brush, size 4 round brush, ½” flat brush, size 8 filbert)

2” coarse bristle brush

Liquitex Matte Medium or Gloss Gel Medium

Liquitex Pouring Medium or Liquitex Flo-Aid

Slow Dry Blending Gel Medium

Surface of your choice (Lisa uses Strathmore canvas paper, Strathmore mixed media paper, and Blick canvas panel)

Paper towels and/or rag

Spray bottle of water

Gloves or Art-Guard Barrier Cream

2 containers of water

Spray bottle (optional)

Paper towels or cloth rag

The Masters Brush Cleaner or dish soap

Downloads:

ClassPDF_Acrylic_Part2.pdf
ClassPDF_Acrylic_Part1.pdf
ClassPDF_AcrylicWAL.pdf
ClassPDF_Acrylic_Part3.pdf

Member Gallery

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Discussion

Notes

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Transcript

Acrylic Painting for Beginners

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Part 1:

Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Getting Started

Lisa Solomon

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Part 2:

Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Value, Light and Shadow

Lisa Solomon

An essential part of painting is learning how to create light and shadow. Using black and white acrylic paints, Lisa shows how to mix a range of gray shades (known as a “grayscale”) for your painting. You will learn how to set up a still life scene in order to practice painting highlight and shadow details. Finally, follow along as Lisa uses a black-and-white photo reference to practice laying in values, creating depth and helping shapes visually pop out of the painting.

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Part 3:

Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Understanding Color

Lisa Solomon

Now for a splash of color. In this final part, you’ll explore how acrylic paint colors mix and match, and learn how to understand the interplay of hue and value. Lisa shares a fun exercise for creating your own signature color wheel using a personal palette. Finally, you will end on a sweet note with a lesson in matching paint colors to Starburst candies and candy wrappers.

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