Acrylic Painting Tutorials And Tips That Are Perfect For Beginners

Painting is a thrilling and exciting activity but even when you’re armed and ready with a loaded paintbrush, you won’t be surprised to discover that you’re not sure how to go about painting something.

This can be equally frustrating and disappointing which is why it’s vital to slow down and learn the basics that will help you immensely through your journey.

These acrylic painting tutorials are the perfect lessons any beginner needs that will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed when actually painting a subject.

As a beginner myself, it was exceptionally confusing when teaching yourself to paint without any guidance.

This is why I’ve created this guide that will show you everything you need to know and a few tips on how to get better at painting if you’re on a mission to become a self-taught artist.

3 Essential Basics To Know Before Starting

Before we get started on creating beautiful art pieces, there are three areas in acrylic painting that you have to take the time to master:

Learning To Blend Acrylics

Blending with acrylic paints is quite a challenge and isn’t as easy as other paint mediums since it’s well known for acrylics drying much faster.

With oils, since its drying time can take days, it’s easier to blend and make changes. However, with acrylics, you’re quite pressed for time and you have to move fast if you want to get a perfect blend.

Learning to blend acrylics will help you if you plan to paint beautiful skyscapes and sceneries.

With more practice that you put into learning to blend acrylics, the easier it will get overtime.

Here’s how you can blend acrylics:

Take two colors and paint a stripe of each. While the paint is wet, you can either use your brush to feather the paint together or use an in-between color to create a seamless blend.

How To Mix ANY Color

Color mixing can drive you nuts if you don’t know how to create a certain color.

It sure did drive me mad at times (if only you knew how much paint I wasted) but learning how to mix any color from the limited palette will be the best thing you can do.

Not only will it save you the headache but you won’t need to buy so many expensive colors if you can mix them easily with just the primary colors (red, blue, yellow, white).

Below is one of the best color mixing tutorials I’ve seen and I’m so happy to share it with you.

Here the artist will show you in real-time how to mix various colors:

Acrylic Techniques To Create Effects

If you plan to add more interest to paintings by creating cool effects, then there are some really amazing tricks you can try.

You can easily learn to paint effects with certain techniques such as dry brushing, sgraffito, overlay, glazing, and more with this tutorial:

My Progress From When I Was Beginner

After learning the basics of acrylic painting, I was able to recreate this stunning painting by the artist known as Correa Art even though this was only my 3rd painting.

Here’s a picture of my painting on a smaller canvas panel:

acrylic painting tutorials, acrylic painting tips for beginners

It was difficult to paint this at first since this isn’t a real-time painting tutorial but I knew that I just wanted to paint something pretty.

So, I made sure to follow as closely as I could but allowed myself to make a few changes.

Acrylic Painting Tutorials

Okay, so now that you have the important basics down, you can begin following these tutorials.

If you don’t have a particular color that they are using, since you already know how to mix colors, you won’t have any issue or be frustrated that your painting looks nowhere near like theirs.

Learning those essential basics beforehand will make it a hundred times easier to follow any step by step painting tutorial.

Impressionistic Landscape

Jumping into a big and detailed landscape right away isn’t such a good idea but if you paint small and loose, you can easily get the hang of things much quicker.

Here is a fun and interesting impressionistic painting tutorial that allows you to be loose and express yourself freely.

You don’t need to be stressed about whether you are using the right color or if something needs to be blended perfectly.

The aim here is to allow you to get the feel of acrylic painting and enjoy yourself while creating something you can hang on your walls.

Easy Seascape Tutorial

Most beginners love to take up the challenge of painting a seascape and this step by step tutorial is one of the best you will find online.

The great thing about this tutorial is that it’s much easier to paint than it looks.

You’ll only want to make sure you mix the four different blues as closely as possible when painting this scene.

But this is also a fantastic beginner acrylic project that is bound to turn out great!

Galaxy Painting Tutorial

This is also a fun acrylic painting you can try that is stressfree and great for a relaxed painting session.

Galaxy paintings don’t have to look perfect so even if you do mess up, it won’t be noticeable.

This tutorial is easy to follow and you get to see how well the colors blend together.

But what I love the most about this project is adding the finishing touch which is painting the stars!

Sunset Tutorial

The next acrylic painting project (which might already be on your bucket list) is painting a beautiful and serene sunset and this tutorial is ideal for beginners and pros.

You will have a lot of fun painting this one but the only thing that may be slightly challenging is the perfectly blended sky.

I recommend giving it your best shot and don’t stress too much about it if you can’t get that perfect look.

Cute Cow Painting

Here’s something a little different from the others and this is painting a fun cow.

It’s a fantastic project if you want to play around with colors and create something that is pretty and cute.

If you’re feeling bold enough after following and completing this tutorial, you could also create a series of animal portraits using this color scheme.

Flowers In A Vase

Painting flowers in acrylics is always my go-to option. You can be as loose and free as you want and they will still look great!

Here’s an awesome flower in a vase tutorial you can paint and hang in just about any room.

This tutorial will also tell you exactly which colors to mix and how to create that special wood effect so you won’t be lost in the dark.

Noteworthy Acrylic Painting Tips You Should Know

1. Never leave your paint brushes sitting in water for a long period of time since this can loosen up the glue in your brushes and they will get damaged.

2. If the acrylic paint you are using feels too thick, use a little bit of water to make it workable or blend colors easily.

3. You can use an acrylic medium like a retarder that will slow down the drying time of your acrylics.

4. To keep your paints on the palette wet for longer, place them in a dish of ice water or keep spraying the paint with a mist bottle.

5. If you want thick layers of acrylic paint showing on your canvas, use a palette knife.

Conclusion

As you can tell, there is plenty of fun and exciting acrylic painting tutorials you can tackle in a day or so with guided steps to help you along the way.

Following a painting tutorial when you’re a pure beginner is highly recommended.

You’re bound to pick up a few golden nuggets and valuable information when you follow these tutorials that you can later on use when you are creating your own masterpieces.

So, which of these acrylic painting tutorials are you planning to follow soon?

Acrylic Painting Tutorials And Tips That Are Perfect For Beginners