Oil Painting and Acrylic Paints

My interest in art and painting, as you all could have guessed from the last three posts, has recently grown.  I just finished my first large oil painting (canvas size 16 x 20) a couple of days ago.  Look familiar?

 

I loved the whole process of this painting and I learned so much about oil painting through it.  However, I have actually done quite a bit more acrylic paintings, like this next one, for several reasons.  

To start, these two types of paints are so different! They almost can't be compared.  I am going to talk about the differences, my experiences with both of them, and which one might work best for you.  

Drying Time 

Oil paints are made up of oil and pigment.  They are thick and a paint thinner is used to make the paint go over the canvas easier especially for the background of paintings.  

Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion.   

And right there, one of the biggest differences between the two paints is the drying time.  Oil paints take weeks and sometimes months to fully dry when acrylic paints seem to take only a moment.  In my opinion, there are good and bad parts of both types in this aspect.  The drying time is one thing that makes both paints better and worse than the other.  

Oil paints are amazing for big paintings because they take so long to dry that you have plenty of time to work on the whole piece and blend all the colors.  On the other hand, acrylic paints are harder to use for that same reason.  When I paint skies with acrylic paints I constantly have to add more of the color I am trying to blend because it already dried.  

Oil painting requires lots more planning.  If I plan to paint a sky with trees in front, oil painting requires me to plan out each place I paint because once I have painted in the sky I won't be able to paint over it for quite some time.  Acrylics however are much easier, you can always paint over and cover-up once the paint dries which is what makes acrylics one of the easiest paints to get started with.

Price 

Another big factor to think about (in most things, not only in paints) is the price.  Oil paints are quite a bit more expensive than acrylics and that is a big factor for me and many other people.  Don't get me wrong, there are expensive acrylic paints but the cheaper, runny acrylic paints work perfectly for me and I almost like them better especially for painting skies because I don't have to worry about wasting paint.  However, oil paints are much easier to mix than acrylics in my experience.  If you are a skilled painter you really only need a couple colors to paint a whole canvas with acrylics, but with acrylics, I would need lots more.  

Accessibility

How pricy the paints are also ties into the accessibility.  If someone wants to try painting they should never start with oils.  There are so many things to know about oil paints before even going to the store.  For example: once you are finished painting with oil paints, if you start cleaning your brush with water (like you would with acrylics) you will ruin your brushes.  The oil base naturally repels the water.  There are lots of different options on how to clean your paintbrush, most commonly used is linseed oil or turpentine to clean the brush of the oil.  Once that is done you can use dawn dish soap and water.  Obviously, oil paints are not as easy and accessible as acrylics.  

Now that you know a little bit about oil paints and acrylic paints you should go and try it!  If you have not done much painting but want to try you should go and pick up some acrylic paints and give it a whirl.  If you have painted with acrylics and want to try something new, then you might love oil painting.  Go and pick up a small $20 set of oil paints, some type of cleaner, thinner, a canvas, some simple videos about oil paint, and experiment with colors.  

As always, I am curious! Have you ever used acrylic paints or oil paints and which do you like better?  Does anything you haven't tried sound interesting? Any questions? I would love to know.  

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