Acrylic Painting for Beginners: A 3-Part Series
Beginner | 2 hours 21 min
Getting Started
00:41
06:27
08:20
05:41
03:49
08:16
12:43
Value, Light and Shadow
00:59
01:44
08:11
16:57
24:42
Understanding Color
00:37
01:55
12:21
09:56
18:30
Taught by Lisa Solomon
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Get a firm foundation in acrylic painting with this fun three-part series taught by artist and professor Lisa Solomon. Lisa covers the basics of Acrylic Painting for Beginners, from learning about different tools and brushstrokes to creating your very own masterpiece. This class is chock-full of information, so grab your paints and get ready for an engaging journey in Acrylics 101.
 
Here’s what you’ll need:
Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Getting Started
(Note: the materials presented here are a great starter kit, but you don’t need everything listed here to get started)
  • Grumbacher Academy Acrylics 10-Color Set (includes Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Yellow Ochre, Thalo Green, Thalo Violet, Thalo Blue, Mars Black, Titanium White)
  • 2 additional colors of choice (Lisa uses Crimson Red and Sap Green)
  • Assorted plastic palette knives
  • Palette of your choosing (Lisa uses a 20-well rectangular plastic palette, enamel tin palette and Strathmore palette paper)
  • 6-piece set of synthetic brushes for acrylic paint (Lisa recommends a mix of the following: wash, fan, flat, angular flat, round, pointed round, filbert, detailed round)
  • Medium or large brushes (Lisa uses size 12 flat wash brush, size 4 round brush, ½” flat brush, size 8 filbert)
  • 2” coarse bristle brush
  • Liquitex Matte Medium or Gloss Gel Medium
  • Liquitex Pouring Medium or Liquitex Flo-Aid
  • Slow Dry Blending Gel Medium
  • Surface of your choice (Lisa uses Strathmore canvas paper, Strathmore mixed media paper, and Blick canvas panel)
  • Paper towels and/or rag
  • Spray bottle of water
  • Gloves or Art-Guard Barrier Cream
  • 2 containers of water
  • Spray bottle (optional)
  • Paper towels or cloth rag
  • The Masters Brush Cleaner or dish soap
  • Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Value, Light and Shadow
  • Acrylic paints in Ivory Black, Mars Black, Titanium White, Mixing White, Unbleached Titanium White (optional)
  • Gesso (white or clear)
  • Lamp and 3-10 objects for creating a still life
  • Light source for still life
  • Black and white photograph (see attached PDF if desired)
  • Pencils and kneaded eraser for sketching
  • Bristol vellum surface paper 
  • From Part 1, you’ll need:
  • Liquitex Matte medium, Liquitex Pouring Medium, or Liquitex Flo-Aid
  • Palette
  • Synthetic brushes for acrylic paint
  • Palette knives
  • Water, rag, paper towels, brush cleaner
  • Gloves or Art-Guard Barrier Cream
  • Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Understanding Color
    Materials from Parts 1 and 2, plus the following:
  • Extra colors of choice (in this exercise, Lisa uses Bright Aqua Green, Primary Red and Brilliant Yellow Green)
  • Printable PDF of Color Wheel (print 2-3 copies on mixed media paper)
  • Printable PDF of abstract painting exercise
  • Starburst candies and wrappers
  • Downloads:
    Learn how to:
    • Paint with acrylics
    • Use diffrent tools and brushstrokes

    What you’ll get:
    • Step-by-step expert instruction from Lisa Solomon on painting with acrylics
    • A mulit-part video lesson you can access online anytime, anywhere
    • Detailed supplies list
    • The ability to leave comments, ask questions, and interact with other students
    Class PDF
    Transcript
    Notes
    Your timecode tags and notes for this section
    Acrylic Painting for Beginners: A 3-Part Series Reviews
    1311 users recommended this class to a friend
    Rita Melgert
    I learned a lot, especially I liked the lesson about painting with greys, so very helpfull.
    May 7
     
    KATHERINE SCHEUERMAN
    Great course for beginners.
    More than 3 months ago
     
    Tammy Dickinson
    I thought the photo was pretty hard. I wish she had started with an easier one.
    More than 3 months ago