5 Reasons to Paint with Acrylic Paints Instead of Oil Paints

Why Paint With Acrylics?

Feel like it's time for a change? I get the feeling that modern art belongs to acrylics and their wide range of artistic and creative possibilities.

More and more acrylic mediums are coming onto the market, helping push the boundaries of art from two-dimensional to three-dimensional works, or the other way around, toward painting with fluid acrylics using fluid acrylics.

At the same time, manufacturers are making greater efforts to protect health and the environment, areas where the production of oil paints falls short in most cases. Let's take a closer look at why acrylic paints are better suited to your art than oil paints.

Swap Out Those Old Favorites, Oil Paints

I've heard traditional artists associate painting with acrylic paints with art class or an art school for beginners. Of course, people have been using oil paints for perhaps as long as the dinosaurs have been around, and they deserve due respect.

But in today's fast-paced world, painting with acrylics is a more practical choice. Art theory teachers in particular teach their students that real artists use oil paints, not acrylics. In my view, acrylic paints are underrated, and I want to share the main reasons why they're worth falling in love with.

First, let's take a look at where acrylic paints came from.

When Were Acrylic Paints Invented?

Before deciding whether to choose oil or acrylic, I wondered where acrylic paints came from. I found out that they were invented in the middle of the 20th century as an alternative to toxic, expensive, slow-drying oil paints.

However, their quality was not ideal at the beginning. “One reason people did not take to acrylic paints is that the first ones were too chalky, extremely matte, and did not contain many strong pigments,” explains Rhéni Tauchid, an artist and author of the 2018 edition of the book titled Acrylic Paints: Media & Methods, which I highly recommend.

Over time, however, manufacturing technology improved, and acrylic became a fully fledged, non-toxic painting medium.

Painters such as David Hockney, Helen Frankenthaler, and Mark Rothko helped make acrylic paints popular. “As people learned more about the possibilities of using acrylics, they also became more popular as a professional medium,” Tauchid noted.

Let’s sum up why it’s a good idea to get to know acrylic paints:

1. You only need a few simple supplies to paint with acrylics

Acrylics are easy to use and easy on your budget. While painting with oil paints calls for several more expensive supplies, such as turpentine, medium, oil, brushes with natural hair, gesso, canvas, and, of course, a well-ventilated space, you need no more than 4 things for acrylic paints, and they are definitely cheaper to buy: acrylic paint, a synthetic brush, a container of water, and a surface to paint on, most often a canvas.

Tauchid recommends investing the money you save in quality acrylic paints. The higher the lightfastness rating, the more durable pigment you can expect. Lightfastness is marked on paints with + signs, so the more + signs, the higher the quality. A quality surface is the foundation of every durable painting.

My tip: highly lightfast acrylic paints Amsterdam by Royal Talens

When it comes to brushes, you don’t need as many for acrylics as you do for oil painting. Synthetic bristles are the best choice. Synthetic fibers handle the texture of acrylic paints better.

Another plus is how easy the brushes are to clean. Just wash them with water, or use soap if needed. Cleaning brushes after using oil paint requires a thinner such as turpentine or other toxic products, and besides the smell, the process will also take quite a bit of time. If you use a palette, you can scrape the acrylic paint off it or simply let it dry and peel it off.

2. Acrylics = control over consistency and texture

One of the best things about acrylics is that they are flexible. When you decide to add a medium (a product that thins or thickens paint), you can achieve qualities similar to those of other types of paint. For example, when you mix in a drying retarder, it feels as if you are painting with oil-based paints. Some mediums let you create a crackle effect or a glitter effect, or you might like a medium for extra-fast drying, even though acrylic paint dries faster than it takes to finish your coffee.

To better understand how acrylic mediums help paints, Tauchid recommends getting familiar with 5 key terms: viscosity (consistency), the tricky word rheology (how paint flows), gloss, relative coverage (degree of transparency), and texture (three-dimensional quality).

It may sound a little like a college lecture, but it’s important to understand how paint behaves on canvas. It’s also important to understand that each of these properties plays an important role in how acrylic paint behaves on canvas. If you’re new to acrylic paints but already have experience with, for example, watercolor, mediums can help you gradually adjust how the paints behave so the result matches what you have in mind.

My tip: the incredibly thick, rich Gallery acrylic paint by Winsor&Newton

3. You Can Paint Anywhere with Acrylics

Do you know the story about the painter who turned their bedroom into a studio? Unfortunately, that’s not the best setup for oil paints, because they require a well-ventilated space. Oil-based paints contain many toxic substances that are harmful to your health. If the studio isn’t well ventilated, mineral spirits and turpentine can fill the air with fumes.

So if you don’t have the budget for your own creative studio with windows, or simply want to paint in the kitchen or living room, acrylics are a great choice. They’re water-based, so you don’t need to thin them with other smelly products. Being water-soluble also makes washing your hands easier, since oil paints are very difficult to remove and can irritate your skin.

This, along with their affordable price and safety, is another reason why acrylic paints are used in art schools.

4. Acrylics Dry Quickly, So You Can Layer Paints Faster

Layer by layer, and a masterpiece takes shape. Just imagine the joy of moving a brush or palette knife across the surface. You can layer acrylic paints quickly enough to create what’s known as a glaze, a texture built over previous layers. You can also use a glazing medium, made from liquid polymer resins, to give your work more transparency and fluidity.

5. Your Painting Can Become a Sculpture

Another fascinating aspect of acrylics is their ability to become a three-dimensional form. “Oil paints, watercolors, or wax-based paints are applied to a surface and remain there, while acrylics can be peeled off a nonstick surface and used as a soft sculpting material, taking them beyond the realm of paint and into the realm of sculpture and collage,” Tauchid explains in extremely scientific language.

Simply put, acrylics are ideal for collage, where pieces of different materials are glued to canvas with acrylic paint to create three-dimensional works.

Acrylic paints are incredibly versatile. What impressed me most is that they’re suited to both artistic work and creative projects. Painting with acrylics is quick, convenient, and eco-friendly. I hope you’ll enjoy acrylics as much as I do.

Wishing you lots of joy in your creative work, Ingrid

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