Category: blog

Join me in this step-by-step acrylic painting tutorial designed for absolute beginners and those battling procrastination! I’ll guide you through creating a mountain landscape with a rustic barn. With the focus on demystifying the painting process, I’ll show you how to sketch, mix colors on your palette, and creating the illusion of depth on a… Continue reading Easy painting tutorial for beginners in acrylics

Acrylics dry very quickly. The drying process consists of various stages, but generally, the paint is sufficiently dry after 10-15 minutes, making wet-on-wet techniques no longer feasible. Please note: the actual drying time is much longer; a regular layer of acrylic paint will only be completely dry inside and out after one to two weeks.… Continue reading How to keep acrylic paint from drying on palette

Stepping back to view your artwork from a distance while painting is important for several reasons. Overall composition Viewing your work from a distance allows you to assess the overall composition and arrangement of elements. This helps you ensure that the various components of your painting are balanced and harmonious. This especially of great importance… Continue reading Watch from a distance!

In acrylic paints, there are various types of black with distinct characteristics. These differences arise from variations in pigments used, additives, and the manufacturing process. Ivory Black: Mars Black: Lamp Black: Carbon Black: Oxide Black: Like with any color variations can exist between brands and specific product lines. To fully understand the characteristics of a… Continue reading Differences in black acrylic paints

You can mix pink with red and white. There are a lot of different red colors available, each one providing a typical kind of pink. On the image below you see the following colors in combination with titanium white (from left to right): vermillion, pyrolle red, cadmium red medium, magenta

It’s very enjoyable and educational to paint using only black and white paint! I’ve chosen a photo that is quite challenging. If you want to paint along with me, you can watch this video: You can download the reference photo below: You can also download a grayscale strip, which allows you to check the actual… Continue reading Tonal value study

Brushes come in all sorts of sizes, shapes, and types. Which brushes are suitable for acrylic paint, and what are the possibilities? Synthetic or animal bristles? For acrylic paint, you generally choose brushes with synthetic bristles. You can also paint with brushes made of natural animal hair, but this has a few disadvantages: acrylic paint… Continue reading Brushes for acrylics

With the following tonal value exercise, you can approach a complex subject in an easy way. Tonal values refer to values from light to dark. The world around us consists of shapes and colors, but we can also look at it from a different perspective; we can observe the differences between light and dark. Thanks… Continue reading Tonal value exercise

Painting on paper has its advantages. Paper is cheaper than a canvas or panel and it takes up less space! What kind of paper? Everyone has their own tastes and preferences. Try out different papers yourself to experience what you like best. Some people like a more coarse surface, others prefer a more smooth one.… Continue reading Painting on paper with acrylics

A mahlstick is a tool to provide support to the painting hand. It’s a stick with a soft ball on one end. You can lean the ball on the painting or lean it on the edges of your canvas or easel. This leaves a little space between the stick and your painting. Now you can… Continue reading Mahlstick

Painting folds with acrylics is easiest if you do some preparatory work on your palette first. Take a good look at the folds and premix some main colors/tonal values. In this example I’ve premixed three tonal values of red: one dark value, one midtone and one light value. Now you can start painting! Just block… Continue reading Painting folds in fabric with acrylics

A gray glass palette is very practical. It’s easy to clean and it’s much easier to judge colors/values than on a white palette. Below you see an example. The same colors look totally different on a gray palette. The gray palette is more neutral and when a color is light, you can clearly see it.… Continue reading Make your own gray glass palette

Canvas is the fabric that you paint on. It’s stretched around a wooden (or aluminium) frame. The frame is made out of stretcher bars. Bigger canvases often have extra crossbars as well, to prevent the main bars from warping. Cotton or linen Cotton and linen are the most common fabrics used for canvases. Cotton threads… Continue reading What to look for when buying a canvas

A good judgement of tonal values is difficult, because our brain easily gets tricked. With the following tips, you can avoid the most common mistakes. The two main reasons for the misperceptions are: 1: we get tricked by surrounding values2: we think we know what we see Surrounding values influence our perception A color or… Continue reading Tricky tonal values

We live in a three dimensional world and we perceive it that way thanks to the differences in light and dark. Everything you see has a tonal value on a scale from black to white. Each color has it’s own tonal value. Some colors are light, some colors are dark. Objects (and therefore colors) can… Continue reading The importance of tonal values

If you don’t know what to paint next, don’t spend too much time searching for the right subject. Procrastination? A long search for the perfect subject can lead to (or be a sign of) procrastination. That’s normal, it happens to all of us. When we want to paint, we just have to dive into it.… Continue reading Don’t know what to paint?

People often think color mixing is difficult. The real problem is usually not the mixing itself. Properly matching the colors being perceived is usually the biggest challenge. If your not entirely clear about the color you’re seeing, it’s no wonder that you fail trying to mix it. Judging colors well is much harder than it… Continue reading Matching colors: tips and tricks

The primary colors are: primary yellow, primary cyan and primary magenta. With only these three colors you can mix all other colors. You cannot make the primary colours yourself by mixing two other colours. You can’t make yellow, cyan or magenta yourself. When you mix yellow and magenta, you can make these variations: orange-yellow, orange,… Continue reading Primary colors. Acrylic painting for beginners

Most of us are used to drawing and painting on white paper since our childhood. But that doesn’t mean white is a logical color to work on. I will discuss some great benefits of working on a colored or toned ground. Light to dark and dark to light When you work on a white canvas,… Continue reading Benefits of a toned ground

Gesso is a perfect ground for your acrylic paintings. It isolates your canvas, panel or paper and therefore lessens the absorption of paint. It will not only save you a lot of paint, it also provides a way better painting experience. The paint will adhere more easily and will flow the way you would expect… Continue reading Gesso why and how to use it

Acrylics dry very fast and when dry they’re water resistant. On a canvas that’s a good thing, but in the bristles of brushes it’s not. It’s important to clean your brushes in time. When to clean your brush? You clean your brush when you want to: paint with another color use another brush quit painting… Continue reading Cleaning acrylic paintbrushes

It can be very beneficial to add an extra layer of coat to a pre-primed canvas or canvasboard. Of course you can start painting right away on a pre-primed canvas. However: manufacturers naturally try to reduce production costs. Often the layers of gesso are diluted too much, or the gesso is unevenly applied. In some… Continue reading Extra gesso on pre-primed canvas