Acrylic Painting Supplies: The Essentials

Hey, painters! Welcome to our blog where we are passionate about helping artists of all levels elevate their skills. Acrylic painting is our absolute favorite at Heart Studio. In today’s post, we’re sharing our essential acrylic painting supplies list to get you started on your painting journey.

Acrylic Paint:

Of course, in order to start a painting you must have the paints first. While investing in high-quality materials is encouraged, it is definitely not a must. Choose what works for your budget! Liquitex Studio paints are a great affordable option and they offer rich pigmentation. 

Colors: Permanent alizarin crimson (red), Cadmium yellow light., Ultramarine blue., Burnt umber. Titanium white, Black (optional). You can always buy secondary colors if you want to expand your paint collection, but learning how to mix all of your colors will transform you into a knowledgeable artist.

Paint Brushes:

Have an assortment of acrylic brushes of all shapes and sizes. Have a few large, medium, small, and detail brushes available to you. This allows you to experiment with different marks on your paintings, which will keep your paintings visually interesting.

Palette Knives (optional):

These are great for color mixing and creating interesting texture on your paintings.

Rags or paper towels:

Be sure to clean your brushes in between using colors so you’re not creating muddy tones in your painting!

Gesso (optional):

Adding a layer of gesso before you paint creates a smoother surface to work on. Most canvases are already gessoed, so you can probably skip this step!

Painting Surfaces:

There are a number of surfaces you can work on: paper, wood, canvas… Canvas is the most popularly used by artists.

Mediums/Additives:

While these are not essential, every painter should learn about them and how they perform. You would mix these in with your paint. It’s also important to note that acrylic paint typically has a semi-gloss finish on its own. 

Gloss medium: further enhances the sheen of acrylic paint and makes paint more transparent

Matte medium: adds a matte finish to acrylic paint 

Glazing medium: used to make paint more transparent

Gel medium: often used as a paint thickener

Texture gels: imitates certain textures like beads and sand

Modeling paste: a very thick paste that’s sand-able once dry, often used for collage

Flow improver: thins acrylic paint

Retarder: slows down the drying time of paint 

Drawing Utensils (Pencils, Eraser, Ruler, Pencil sharpener):

Use these to sketch out your drawing first before painting.

Paint Palette:

You can use a glass palette, a plastic palette, a paper plate, or a paper palette! You just want something to mix your paint on.

Jar for water:

We reuse salsa or pickle jars for this.

We can’t wait to see what you create. Give us a follow on our Instagram for more painting tips!

Happy painting!

Thanks for reading,

The Heart Studio Team

Do you live in the MA/NH area?

Come stop by Heart Studio! We have art classes available for all ages. 

At Heart Studio our mission is to grow a community of artists and designers by providing our students a creative space, mentorship and necessary tools to create. 

About the owner 

Heart Studio is owner Kim Piazza’s passion project. She has worked in the corporate design world for nearly seven years and has switched careers to work with her true love— people. She gets more joy out of seeing someone else succeed through her teachings than creating her own work.