Beginner acrylic painting supplies

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If you’re starting out on your acrylic painting journey – congratulations! You’re choosing a wonderful medium that allows you to paint an incredible range of art, from incredibly detailed images to wildly imaginative abstracts and everything in between. To start yourself off, you’ll need some beginner acrylic painting supplies – and I’m sharing my tips for what to pick up to start your practice. 

Watch me share my list of acrylic painting supplies for beginners on YouTube.

Here’s what you’ll need. You may be able to find these at your local art supply or order them from Amazon. I’ll add links to US and Canada Amazon to item.

Acrylic paint!

Of course, to start painting with acrylic, you’ll need several tubes of acrylic paint. I recommend using a student grade of paint from a reputable brand when you’re first starting out. I used Winsor & Newton’s Galeria line extensively for the first year or so of my acrylic painting. It’s far less expensive than their highest quality versions but still quite good for beginners. Many artists happily use the student grades of paint for years. If you can afford it and you have some drawing skills already, you may progress quickly, so feel free to start out with artist-quality paints if your budget allows. 

To start out, I recommend two versions of each colour around the colour wheel, plus a white. 

Two reds

  • A warm red, such as cadmium red or vermilion hue. 
  • A cool red, such as permanent alizarin crimson or quinacridone magenta

Two blues

  • A warm blue, such as cobalt blue or ultramarine blue
  • A cool blue, such as cerulean blue or a phthalo blue

Two yellows

  • A warm yellow, such as one of the cadmium yellows
  • A cool yellow, such as lemon yellow

Titanium white

Bonus colours that you just like. Many artists love sap green, so I have a tube of the Galeria acrylic. 

Sometimes a set is easiest to buy when you’re a beginner. Golden has several sets, including this mixing set on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. If you’re interested in some less expensive paints, try the Galeria set, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

A canvas

I often used a canvas pad, which comes with 10 sheets of canvas to practice on and is very inexpensive. You can also pick up canvas panels at an affordable price or traditional canvases at a craft store like MIchaels for a decent price. Amazon.com and Amazon.ca have canvas panels in large quantities.

Paintbrushes

Your choice of paintbrush will be highly personal. Don’t be surprised that you try out all sorts of paintbrushes over the years. To start out, I suggest using the Princeton Snap line of paintbrushes. They often come in sets at a very affordable price. 

I recommend starting with three sizes of brushes – small, medium and large. The large is great for applying larger amounts of paint with less detail. The medium allows you to add more detail, but not fine detail. And a small brush allows you to add the finest details and sign your painting. 

Paintbrushes come with sizing numbers, but they aren’t consistent between all brands. The specific size depends on what type of painting you’re aiming to do. If you’re painting a smaller, very detailed painting, choose a variety of three brushes. For a larger, more abstract painting, go for larger brushes.

There are also quite a few shapes available. For beginners, I suggest sticking to flat (kind of a square or rectangle shape), filbert (an almond shape), angle (similar to flat but at an angle), or round (the same width around the entire brush). 

I still like using some of my earliest brush purchases, which were the Princeton Snap brushes. They are available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.

A palette

In my early days,I used a pad of palette paper, which is coated on one side with an impermeable plastic and is disposable. They’re fairly inexpensive and no-fuss. If you’d like something more permanent, i recommend a sta-wet palette. It has sheets that you can reuse many times and also keeps your paint from drying on the palette itself. Learn how to use a sta-wet palette in my blog post. Several different sizes are available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

A rinse bucket

I use an old honey bucket, so feel free to use something you already have. Whatever you choose, ensure it’s only used for painting because it’ll get quite dirty from the paint 

An easel

This allows you to have your painting at a comfortable angle and height. You can buy inexpensive tabletop easels at many art and craft stores. If you’d like to save a few dollars, you can paint on a table but be sure to protect your surface and ensure you’re not letting your canvas dry to the table! Amazon.com and Amazon.ca have a variety of easels, depending on what you’re interested in.

A pencil

This isn’t necessary, but if you want to sketch out your subject before you start, a pencil gives you more control. You can also do a loose sketch directly with paint as well. 

A towel

I use an old tea towel to dry off my brush a little after rinsing it off. Some artists use paper towel but I prefer using a reusable cloth instead.

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