I want to start painting, but I don't know what media to use: acrylic or oil? I know nothing about painting, as I have stayed with drawing and sketching my entire life. Is acrylic or oil better for the beginning painter? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Personally I perfer water color for begining. Especially if your painting something that you want to involve shadowing. I've never used oil paint but I have used acrylic and it works well when starting off.
The only good advice I can give you is that oil has more things to take into consideration. It's definitely a challenging medium to use. As for Acrylic, it's paint, water, brushes, canvas, and some sort of palette would help. You can get the idea of painting with any paints you start with. But I think acrylic or water colors are nice to a beginning. Good luck tell me how the battle goes.
I paint live with acrylic and my set up (that I lug into shows) is easel, dropcloth, water bucket, quiver of brushes and a sea sponge, paints, palette (i started with paper plates), headlamp (spelunkers lantern) and pink soap for the brushes This all fits in a medium sized duffel bag. THen I carry the canvas/paper in my other hand. Usually a painting is dry enough to move in 30 minutes after the show IF I haven't gone heavy-texture. So If you will not have a permanent set up, you might want to start with water or acrylic for the portability factor. One question: do oils really ever dry? or do they simply stabilize?
i have both. and enjoy both, but haven't created anything with my oils in years because i just don't want to deal with the clean up of oils (if i had some 'studio' space i would bring them out again... right now my 'studio' is the tiny room labeled 'dining room' on the floor plans of this little house and is right in the kitchen). acrylic is nice for clean up... and it's great that it dries fast; if you're unhappy with a part of a painting you can wait for it to dry and paint over it or re-gesso the whole canvas i encourage you to try both mediums though. (i have water colours also... but i like to slap the paint on and go, not think about leaving highlights white. with acrylics i paint backwards from water colours... i do the dark colours first, then add the highlights later. with watercolours you have to leave your highlights blank and build up the darker colours around them.) in any case, whatever you choose, have fun with it! -z
I prefer oil over acrylics. Just for the reason that acrylics dry way too fast. No shadowing possible, your mixed colors dry too fast. I personally hate it. Everything has it's pro and cons. For Oil it is definately the smell of the thinner, and the fact that it takes months till it's totally dry. (about a week until you can touch it safely) The pros of acrylics are definately the fact that you use water as thinner, so there is no smell. I would say, experiment and see what you like. It really depends on what you want to paint, what your style is and with what you are more comfortable. I use a special oil paint that is water soluble, it's a lil more expensive, but I really can't stand the smell of regular oil colors.
i've had buying an oil set on my to do list for the past couple months... i know when using acrylics u can use mediums to thin out the paint so it spreads more, or the colors gradiate farther/smoother... does anyone know if theres such a thing to use with oils? is that what paint thinner is for? or turbintine?
You can totally shadow with ANY paint! Its all in the technique. IMHO Shading is always the hardest part of any medium.
my art teacher had us using a mix of thinner linsead oil and.... I forget the other one, but yes there is a mix you can use.
Being a mainly watercolor painter..... i have to say that I wouldn't suggest watercolor for a beginning painter. There is so much techique and it takes a while to figure out how you have to do stuff for certain affects........ I'm not saying in any way that the other mediums have any less techique but u can pick them up faster........ i wouldnt suggest oils for a first-timer either...... just because of the drying factor.... though it would make it eisier to correct mistakes/ or to change later on if you're unsatisfied.... So id suggest acrylics............. at least for the first few times
