by Jesse Hunt

Created on: June 20, 2008

Acrylic Paint is like the sports utility vehicle of the paint world. It is incredibly versatile. With acrylics you can get the paint to emulate the luminescent looks of water colors, the fluid strokes of oil, or even the thick consistency of a thick tar. I love this paint medium because it allows an artist so much room for experimentation. Experimenting as an artist allows the most growth opportunities, and potential for recognition as an artist.

Just what types of experiments are there with acrylics? There are literally hundreds in my opinion. The easiest is to simply add water and you get a water paint mixture that allows for a nice water color painting. You can add a drywall plaster to acrylics which creates a very cheap fresco medium. Another option is to add a glazing liquid to your paint, this essentially allows you to use acrylic as a wall glaze like a faux finisher. To use a glaze will allow you deep contrast to background paintings. You can add a textile medium to the paint which created a thick ink like substance where you can permanently add your mark to a t-shirt. This Textile medium even allows you to use the traditional methods of silk screening. The images even come out equal to its textile ink counter parts, but at a fraction of the costs. Another additive for acrylics is an extender this thins the acrylic a little but also allow for a slower drying time, and the ability to blend closer to it oil paint. So just in the short perks above you can be a water color artist, a fresco artist, a print artist, and an oil artist, all using a single medium. To me this constitutes the definition of versatile which is having a capability for many different uses.

What Acrylics are out there to use. You can go to a local hobby shop and pick up Craft acrylic at seventy five cents to as much as twenty dollars a tube of a nice acrylic. The price usually determines the quality, and the ability to hold its color over time. It's like a Datsun compared to a Mercedes cost determines the look you're going for. But I have been completely happy myself with the ability of cheap acrylics to perform just fine comparative to its fancy alternative.

Acrylics are great for the artist for the mere fact of its clean ability, literally a little water and wham it's clean. Did I mention there are no fumes to worry about for this reason alone acrylics become a safer medium, for children and older adults, well I guess for all people. So what are you waiting for, get your hands dirty with acrylic? See what you can put in it to change its viscosity, and add life to your paintings.

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