Lets Talk Supplies

This blog will discuss the different supplies you need to do an acrylic painting.

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Paint

Although this may seem obvious, paint is the most important supply you'll need. For this blog I'll be talking about acrylic paint only. Acrylic paint is relatively cheap, however you have to watch out for brands that are too cheap. Some paints don't have great quality and will start to thicken, or they may be watered down and appear very thin.

Acrylic paint can come in bottles, or tubes. In general your cheaper, starter brands will be sold in small bottles at stores like Wal Mart, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, etc. The more expensive brands can also usually be found at stores like these however some may be sold at more high end art stores or may have to be ordered.

I personally like to use FolkArt Acrylic paint. It is fairly cheap but the quality is amazing. This is a great brand if you are not a new artist, but not an expert yet either.

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Brushes

The brand of brush you use is also super important. Cheaper brushes often lose bristles and make a mess of your painting. When the quality of the brush is higher, you'll get a clean texture from your brush.

Brushes can be found from as cheap as $6 for 10 or as expensive as $749 for a set. As you can imagine there is a very wide range of price and quality when it comes to paintbrushes. There are many reliable brands and as long as your brush isn't loosing bristles or falling apart, you'll be ok.

I personally use the brand Princeton. These brushes are very cheap and can be found at Wal Mart and on Amazon as well as other stores.

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Other Supplies

The last things you'll need are a canvas, or something to paint on, a palette, and some cleaning supplies. Acrylic paint is the most diverse kind of paint because it can be applied to so many things. Furniture, décor, toys, and many more things can be altered with acrylic paint.

For canvases, linen canvases are the best to paint on but also the most expensive. Most are made with cotton and/or jute. These work just fine but they can appear more rough than linen.

For a palette you can find plastic or wooden ones at most craft stores. There are traditional palettes created with a hole for your thumb and a place for the palette to rest against your wrist and arm, there are also palettes that are met to sit on a flat surface that feature smalls wells created to hold paint and prevent mixing. If you don't have a palette, you can always use a paper plate, these give you a lot of space to mix paint and experiment with colors.

Lastly, you'll need a cup with water to rinse your brush, and some kind of towel to dry your brushes with. Specialty cups designed with bumps and ridges to help clean the paint out of the bristles of your brush, are sold but a regular cup will work just fine. For a towel, I use a cut up old beach towel so I don't have to waste paper towels or ruin a good towel.

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This is a simple list and there are so many cool art supplies out there to experiment and create with, but these things are a must.