I've tried all kinds of paint. I spent a lot of time using acrylics. At art college we were taught to mix our own using Spectrum PVA, base, and pigments. One of the tutors gave me a sample pack of Liquitex to try. It seemed the height of arty luxury, to be able to buy paint in pre-mixed tones. After art college I used Winsor & Newton acrylics for a while.
And today I wouldn't touch any of them with a bargepole.
It's not a quality thing; any proprietary brand of acrylic paint is probably just as permanent and lightfast as comparable oil paint. But I'd rather bite off my own arm than use acrylics ever again.
Why? Three reasons: drying time, handling, and colour change.
Acrylics dry quickly. That's a good thing, right? Not really. You have to work fast with acrylics, or you can find yourself with a handful of ruined brushes. Sometimes working fast is a good thing - but working at a pace you choose is usually better.
If you're working in an alla prima technique, oil paint allows you to put down a brushstroke of the correct tone and colour immediately. With acrylics, the handling means you're trapped between applying the paint like watercolour or using full impasto. There doesn't seem to be a happy place between those two. You're working in layers, like tempera, that start off transparent and build up to opacity, or you're using the paint full thickness. I always ended up fighting acrylic paint or using workarounds to get something like the result I wanted. Compromising with your materials is a bad way to work.
When acrylics dry, there's a tonal change between wet and dry paint. The paint dries around a half tone darker than when you put it on. That just doesn't happen with oils. I don't want to be constantly second guessing myself and trying to judge a tonal change between wet and dry paint when I'm working.
Bottom line? When I use oil paint, I know what to expect. I can use it to make opaque marks, or the thinnest of glazes. It dries the same tone and colour as the pile I mixed on my palette. I can scumble it, scrub it in, blend it, paint fine lines or thick juicy impasto, and it'll never surprise me in a bad way. Whatever advantages acrylics offer - and for the life of me, I can't think what they are - they just don't compare, for me, with ordinary oil paint. Using acrylics is like painting with boxing gloves on. It can be done, but not well. And why would you?
And today I wouldn't touch any of them with a bargepole.
It's not a quality thing; any proprietary brand of acrylic paint is probably just as permanent and lightfast as comparable oil paint. But I'd rather bite off my own arm than use acrylics ever again.
Why? Three reasons: drying time, handling, and colour change.
Acrylics dry quickly. That's a good thing, right? Not really. You have to work fast with acrylics, or you can find yourself with a handful of ruined brushes. Sometimes working fast is a good thing - but working at a pace you choose is usually better.
If you're working in an alla prima technique, oil paint allows you to put down a brushstroke of the correct tone and colour immediately. With acrylics, the handling means you're trapped between applying the paint like watercolour or using full impasto. There doesn't seem to be a happy place between those two. You're working in layers, like tempera, that start off transparent and build up to opacity, or you're using the paint full thickness. I always ended up fighting acrylic paint or using workarounds to get something like the result I wanted. Compromising with your materials is a bad way to work.
When acrylics dry, there's a tonal change between wet and dry paint. The paint dries around a half tone darker than when you put it on. That just doesn't happen with oils. I don't want to be constantly second guessing myself and trying to judge a tonal change between wet and dry paint when I'm working.
Bottom line? When I use oil paint, I know what to expect. I can use it to make opaque marks, or the thinnest of glazes. It dries the same tone and colour as the pile I mixed on my palette. I can scumble it, scrub it in, blend it, paint fine lines or thick juicy impasto, and it'll never surprise me in a bad way. Whatever advantages acrylics offer - and for the life of me, I can't think what they are - they just don't compare, for me, with ordinary oil paint. Using acrylics is like painting with boxing gloves on. It can be done, but not well. And why would you?
