I bet if acrylic paints were invented during the life of Van Gogh or Dali, then many of their works were done in acrylic. After all, if you want to work alla prima, that is, in one sitting, then acrylic simply has no equal. Recently I fell in love with acrylic. In fact, I was a little late, because acrylic paints have been on the market for about 100 years!

Art acrylic paint is a water-based paint, in fact, these paints are somewhat similar to gouache or watercolor. If you dilute them strongly with water, you can write very thinly. But you can also apply dense strokes, then you get the effect of oil painting. In art stores you can find a wide palette of acrylic colors.

After a break in my artistic activity, I decided to return to painting quickly and without much difficulty. When you just want to portray something on canvas in a light format, then acrylic gives you all the possibilities for this. It’s easy to apply paint, mix the colors in an elementary way, rinse with a brush is easier than you can imagine.

To work with acrylic, you will need:

• canvas (or cardboard, a piece of wood, glass, a wall … almost any surface);
• acrylic paints (but do not rush to squeeze all of them onto the palette, as they dry very quickly!);
• a glass of water (I use a reusable plastic jar with a wide neck);
• litter under the canvas (paint splashes quite easily and flies to the floor).

It is important to remember that acrylic, in contrast to oil paints, looks darker when dried than when it was painted. This is a bit difficult to get used to, you need to practice. And then — just take it and paint or write. Yes! Professionals say that paintings are not painted, but written. Have you heard that? I was always annoyed by this formality. But not today.

Today I decided to write my painting with acrylic, in the literal sense of the word. To paint a picture as if I weren’t painting it at all, namely, I’m writing some kind of artistic manuscript. If you look closely, you can even read my message 🙂 Why don’t you try this technique that I came up with today. Write like that!

This painting “Poppy Field” I wrote today in 1 hour 11 minutes. Canvas size 35×40 cm. Canvas on a stretcher. The colors used were olive green, red, dark red, light brown, orange, blue and titanium white. I painted a picture standing in the light of an oblong lamp, the canvas was held on an easel. I wrote everything with one small flat brush.

I have long wanted to create a picture of a field with poppies, I saw such a field in childhood. Not that exactly, of course. You cannot find that field anymore. Some memories still draw green grass, poppies, sky. I always wanted to go home, but the field and other games really distracted and entertained me. And the whole village watched the series “Simplemente María” every day.

In general, if you don’t know what to draw paint, you can think functionally, as I sometimes do: “What picture would I like to see on the background of my video?”. Well, I’m just a video blogger 🙂 You can think in your own way, such as “what kind of picture I would hang on the bedside table” or “which picture can be successfully sold on the Internet” 🙂

When you decide on an idea, you can turn to the world wide Internet for inspiration, flip through Google images on a topic, see videos. You can search for your photos or recharge with texts on websites / social media. I usually do not sketch, but if you want, you can take a red acrylic pencil and draw the contours on the canvas.

If you are going to paint a picture for the first time, then I wildly envy you. Most likely you will experience a bunch of fun emotions from interacting with paints. This is really fun! But you should not be afraid. Acrylic provides many opportunities to remake or fix something, if something went wrong. Just wait until the layer dries (5-10 minutes), and you can paint it with a new layer on top.

Is acrylic your first material? Or have you tried other paints before?