Acrylic Paint Review -- Product comparison of acrylic paints and why this is important!

So many acrylic paints and not enough time or money to keep trying them all??!!!

Do you love the endless creative possibilities that the world of art gives you but aren't sure if each brand's consistency of product will meet your needs?

Relying solely on the description when you flip to the back of the box or tube isn't exactly reliable and most of the time not helpful at all. Therefore, in this post, I'm filling in for you the best uses and for 5 brands of acrylic paint so you get the results you're looking for.

This post is going to seem like I am comparing and contrasting a lot of brands. These are my opinions from personal usage and in no way meant to promote or defame such products mentioned. There are Blick Art Materials affiliate links throughout this post, where you can purchase these products at an awesome price. If you decide that you want to buy from one of these links, I will receive a small commission that I utilize to create more works of art at no additional expense to you.

Super Heavy Body

If you want a heavy body acrylic paint that doesn't mess around I recommend two solutions for you.

1.) Daler-Rowney System 3 Heavy Body

2.) Liquitex Professional Heavy Body

If you want to attempt a post-impressionist style painting and want visible brush strokes without using oil as your medium, these are a perfect alternative. A word of caution for both of these, they dry extremely quick! Best used indoors without a fan blowing. If you want to get more bang for your buck add a few drops of thinner medium and the color is still consistent while giving you a smoother expansion of product. Blending is more difficult with these as they dry on the palette and on the canvas quicker than oil, which brings us to the next section so keep reading.

Daler-Rowney System 3 Heavy Body Acrylics Daler-Rowney System 3 heavy body acrylic paint is ultra thick with an oil-like consistency and finish. The paint is ideal for textural effects and impasto techniques with a unique texture that holds its shape and brush marks. No solvents required.

Slow Drying

Golden Open Acrylic Sets are God's best-kept secret! They take forever to dry.....which is not a bad thing when you need extra time to blend. They take about a 30-60 minutes to dry to the touch, however, don't be fooled....they take around 25-30 days to completely cure underneath the surface. If you are crossing over from normally using oil paints into acrylics this is an awesome way to bridge that gap! If you are more used to acrylic paints though these may frustrate you until you work with them and give them a chance for a while. Just keep in mind that you cannot varnish after using these until the 25-30 day curing time is completed. You can speed that time up though by putting the painting on a drying rack with a heater and a fan blowing on it cutting that time to about 7-10 days if you are done with all of your blendings and need to get it to market quickly.

This helps when painting landscapes or if you enjoy painting with acrylics outdoors when the weather cooperates. They have many other uses for example if you want certain colors to stand out and don't want them to blend together just use on top of a layer of regular acrylic paint that's already dried. If you do want more blending ability use a drop of thinner to extend any normal acrylic paint that this set comes with.

 

Professional Acrylics

There are some colors that you can only find in the professional acrylic product lines. One of them is ultramarine violet. Professional acrylic paint is of course "top of the line" and as you can guess it can also break the bank. A hack for this is finding each company's next tier downline of their products that are in the zone of academic and professional. For example, Winsor & Newton's Galeria offers a comparable quality, however, with a limited choice of color.

The color options they offer for their Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic Sets are rated AA and A most all except one are permanent pigments. If you want their premium color wheel, they do have a tier above this product line coined Professional and the tubes have a different appearance along with the price being double.

I equate the Galeria paints similar to Daler-Rowney Graduate Acrylics with the exception that Galeria is a lot easier to spread on canvas and for adding details into a painting. Graduate acrylics definitely have a medium/heavy body like many of the Daler-Rowney paints, in general, seem to still bring beautiful results as long as you know this so you can plan accordingly. Cryla is Daler Rowney's high-end professional line of acrylic paint. It's more like Winsor & Newton Professional Acrylic Sets, however, extremely difficult to find a store online and offline that carries Cryla anymore.

Winsor & Newton Professional Acrylic Sets Unrivaled in brilliance, Winsor & Newton's Professional Acrylics combines a revolutionary transparent binder that eliminates color shift from wet to dry with the highest-quality pigments to ensure clean, strong colors with wonderful working properties. - Starter Set of 12

 Academic/Student Acrylics

Don't let the word basic get in the way of thinking Liquitex Basics acrylic paints aren't a quality option if you're creating on your own budget. The assortment of colors offered by Liquitex means less time mixing and more time creating. These dry quicker when used on a stretched canvas with a medium weight than on a super smooth canvas where they remain a bit more wet for longer.


Chroma A2 Lightfast Heavy Body Acrylic

is another choice that I recommend that is less heard of. It's actually a professional product as well as a student grade, therefore, I put it in this section. Once this paint dries it's going to give off a bit of a gloss and enhances details in a creation better than a matte.

Liquitex Basics Acrylic Colors For watercolor, airbrush, and printmaking. Apply on canvas, wood, clay, paper, fabric. Mix with water or Liquitex acrylic mediums. Dries water-resistant, flexible, and with permanent adhesive properties. - Set of 6 Colors

Interesting Finds

This last section shares with you a few interesting off the grid types of acrylics and one product that you'll find useful to add to your creations someday.

Ever wonder how artists create a mural on the side of a building?

With mural paint!

Silly me, I always thought they were using spray paint. If you're thinking about ever creating a mural for a business or your own business it's definitely an alternative acrylic paint to experiment around with first on loose cinder blocks or a similar surface to get a feel of the different surface.

Chroma Acrylic Mural Paint This multi-purpose acrylic paint is water-resistant, moisture-resistant, and lightfast, making it ideal for outdoor art. Available in a variety of bright, mixable, opaque colors, it's ready to use, non-toxic, and cleans up with soap and water.

Angelus Acrylic Leather Paint is what you want to use if you are adding your design to leather products such as a motorcycle jacket.

Jacquard Pearl Powered Pigment in the image under this section and also what I use in the painting, Creeping Phlox, is a really good additive to use when you want to add a reflective mirror effect.

The powder pigments mix well with any of the acrylic paints that you already have which makes things, even more, easier when trying to blend a background or add highlights to a painting. The powders are ultra fine and a little goes a long way so be cautious when you sprinkle some onto your palette as its very easy to dump out most of the container accidentally and it clings to surfaces and your hands like crazy. The label lists different particle sizes to adjust how to create rapid effects from just being slightly pearly with a sheen to completely light reflective.

I hope you enjoyed reading more about acrylic paints, to view more of the paintings done by these products head on over to my official website!