Acrylic Painting Tutorial

A Tutorial for Acrylic Painting from Your Imagination

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through the process of creating an acrylic painting or illustration. Acrylics are water-based. The advantage of acrylics is that they can mimic effects of oil or watercolor within the same work. They’re very versatile and dry quickly. You don’t have to deal with any of the toxic chemicals involved in the oil painting pocess. The below painting was created with acrylic paint on bristol board which is a thick paper (65lb).

Step 1: Concepts

The image was for an infographic for my blog about music piracy. I wanted the final graphic to resemble a magazine spread. In my sketchbook, I created the concepts pictured above.

Step 2: Preparation

Your palette can be set up to stay wet for days. Just take any sealable container, cut a piece of paper towel or cloth to line the bottom. Add water to wet the cloth. Finally, place a piece of wax paper on top of the wet lining. You can place paints on the wax paper which will be hydrated by the layer below. If the lining starts to dry, just add more water. When you’re done for the day, seal the container and the next day or two your paints will be maintained.

To prepare your paper, you’ll need to first seal it with acrylic gesso. Two or three coats of gesso will prevent your paint from soaking into the paper and keep the acids from the paper from affecting the paint over time. Just brush it on according to the directions on the bottle. Usually you will have to allow the gesso to dry for 24 hours before applying paint layers.

Step 3: The under painting

For this tutorial, I used a very wet brush and small amounts of paint as a wash to create a chromatic underpainting. For this step, I only use raw umber paint, though you can actually use any color you like. You can “draw” the lines on with the watered down paint. Use a wet cloth to wipe away the paint at this stage while it’s still wet as if it’s an erased. The advantage of doing it with only washes of paint and not pencil or graphic is that you can continue using clear washes to build up the work. In this method, the work done underpainting can show through parts of the finished work. In the follow up to this tutorial, I’ll show you how the grid method can be used to translate a pencil work into a painting.

When creating your work, you’ll need to collect many many reference photos. Study and refer to anatomy diagrams when dealing with the human figure. A mirror can also be helpful. Keep your reference photos handy at all times. Your work will be sharpened and improved whenever you avoid working directly from your imagination. Otherwise you’re missing opportunities to learn from an outside source. Rather than copying a single photo, you’ll want to use several photos to choose the best of each. It’s better still if you can work in person with a live model, family member or friend.

Step 3: Modeling

After the linework is finished, I began to “model” the work. Modeling here refers to using light and shadow to create a three dimensional appearance. First model as a monochromatic using raw umber. Then, use a dark color but never black to fill in the darkest parts of the work. I used dioxazine purple. Then you can use white to fill in the brights and all of the colors thus far to start some detail. High contrast creates dimension, so lights and darks applied right next to each other are most effective. The paint dries quickly enough that you can let it dry for a few moments and then quickly start using washing colors close to what you want your final work to look like.

Step 4: Faces

One thing I’ve found through critiques is that if my faces aren’t perfect, the whole painting suffers. So at this point I would work on the details of the faces. For my skin tones, I would use a red such as cadmium red along with white and raw umber. Purple can work in the darks. Lighting effects and race make a huge difference here, so experiment away. Reference photos here take what I imagined and make it feel real. Keep in mind a consistent light source. For more about the proportions of the human face, I suggest the book Drawing the Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis.

Step 5: Working in color

From here on out, it’s just a matter of using thin washes of color to fill in details. Rely on your reference photos. For clothing, think about how the fabric would be tugged and pulled around the figures anatomy. Colors bounce off of each other so work the entire painting together and feel free to blend colors from different parts. Use the complimentary color of the local color in the shadows for more depth. Don’t use any black. I didn’t use black paint at all in this painting, but if I was I would use it in the very last step.
Closing thoughts

Here’s the original painting again. I used white as the background since that’s what I needed for my final graphic. However, in an ideal painting you would use the background to emphasize the lights and darks in the key subjects. In the light parts of the work, use a darker background and vice versa. In the style here, I used the darks and lights in a similar way. Take a look at the final graphic to see how it worked along with the editorial. In the followup to this article, I talk about working with a grid and pencil to translate a more finalized sketch into a painting. This would be useful if you were creating something for a client. This is also great for those of you who are more used to working in pencil.

Author Bio: Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and illustrator from Baltimore, Maryland who blogs at Sketchee.com.