Getting started with acrylic painting

I remember starting out with acrylics. I was SO excited and honestly, clueless. And you know what? It didn’t matter. Part of the joy of learning to paint was figuring out the best brushes, what to paint on, what colours I needed.

But not everyone wants to do that and so for those of you, here’s a list to get you started.

The absolute basics you’ll need are:

• Paints

• A few brushes

• Canvas

• Palette

• Cup

That’s it. Really. Let’s go into a bit more detail for each.

Paints

You need far fewer colours than you might think if you’re happy to mix them. I didn’t buy orange paint for ages and in the process, I learnt that mixing colours is one of my favourite (and most therapeutic) parts of painting.

To get you started you’ll need:

• Titanium white

• Cadmium red medium

• Cadmium yellow medium

• Ultramarine blue

• Mars black

• Burnt umber (brown)

• Dioxazine purple

• Phthalo green

Other colours which are useful but not necessary:

• Orange (saves time on mixing)

• Titanium Buff (great for mixing skin tones

• Magenta (for a true pink)

Brushes

As with paints you could buy a huge collection but you can get away with:

• 1 inch flat brush (for painting large areas)

• ¼ inch slanted brush (for filling in)

• Fine detail brush (for small areas)

Also nice to have:

• Fan brush (great for trees)

• An old toothbrush (for spattering paint)

Canvas

When I started out, I painted on canvas boards but they’re bulky to store and expensive to buy long-term. I now use a canvas pad. You tear off a sheet as you use them and it’s much easier to store your finished paintings.

Other tools

• Palette (a cheap plastic one is easy to wash and reuse)

• Cup (to rinse off brushes)

• Paper towels (to wipe off brushes)

• Ruler

• Pencil

• Eraser

That’s it. That’s really all you need. Happy painting!