Acrylic Painting Technique Practice
#1: Discrete Brush Strokes
1. Discrete Brush Strokes. Apply a flat, graded blue background (undercoat) and many layers of individual brush strokes to create
optical color mixing (and theoretically the illusion of water and sun reflections).
#2: Stencil and Stamp Painting
2. Stencil and Stamp Painting. Used a variety of materials as stencils, such as plastic embroidery mesh, hardware cloth, plastic
decorative stencils. Multiple layers of paint were applied with a stencil brush and with q-tips and a rubber stamp. Fun!
#3: Energized Brush Strokes Alla Prima
3. Energized Brush Strokes Alla Prima. Using glazing liquid to keep paint workable a bit longer, applied layers of brush strokes
freely, letting colors blend into each other.
#4: Impasto with Sgraffito
4. Impasto with Sgraffito (scraping). On top of flat underpainting, applied paint mixed with gel medium and before it dried,
scraped through it with a variety of implements including popsicle stick, rubber combs, and paint shapers.
#5: Glazing and Scumbling
5. Glazing and Scumbling. Apply under-painting of blue, leaving a white hole in the center. Then glaze half the blue with a very
thin layer of the same blue mixed with glazing medium (see how it enriches the color and removes chalkiness). The center hole was
painted red. Then turquoise paint was scumbled (scrubbed with a dry brush) on top of the blue and softly over the edge of the red.
#6: Cross-hatch Brush Stroke
6. Cross-hatch Brush Stroke. Create a flat, dark under-painting first. Then, with a second color, make brush strokes that cross
each other in hundreds of little X’s with a fairly dry brush to create soft gradations with many layers.
#7: Soft-edge & Hard-edge
7. Creating soft- and hard-edged transitions. Paint a dark, flat background first. Then mask the edge of the section at the top
left with masking tape and lighter red painted in that area. The transition at the bottom was created with layers and layers of softly
scumbled paint lightly scrubbed on with a nearly dry brush, always starting at the corner and moving towards the center so there was
less paint on the brush as it approached the transition area.
#8: Glazes, Wipe Removal & Combing
8. Glazes, Wipe Removal & Combing. On top of a flat, muted background (in this case mauve was used), layers of paint mixed
with glazing medium were applied and then wiped back with a damp cloth and combed through using a rubber, multi-sided comb.
#9: Finger Painting & Mixed Media
9. Finger Painting & Mixed Media. Start by finger painting with grey paint (Graphite Gray looks like graphite). Then add water
soluble crayons, Sharpie marker, pencil, and layers of acrylic medium. Also, shave little chunks of crayon wax and melt the crayon
with the heat gun around your composition. Finish with medium to seal the crayon layer.
#10: Staining
10. Staining. Leave this square of the canvas un-gessoed. Mix the paint with a high proportion of water and allow it to move and
blend wet into wet. It doesn’t quite work as nicely as watercolor wet into wet. Mixing more than 25% water with acrylics can cause
them to fail to bond with other acrylic layers, but that’s not important when working with an absorbent ground since it will sink into
the fibers.
#11. Alla Prima as Underpainting
11. Alla Prima as Underpainting. Create an under-painting like #3 using bold strokes of paint, wet into wet. When dry, paint over
it with various techniques including combing and glazing.
#12: Painted Gel Relief
12. Painted Gel Relief. First apply a pile of heavy clear gel to the surface. Then push around, smooth, and shape with various
implements. When dry to the touch after 24 hours, paint it with Micaceous Iron Oxide, Copper and Bronze acrylic paint.
#13: Found-Object Collage
13. Found-Object Collage. Apply a flat layer of heavy gel. Then find and stick random found objects into it (twine, match stick,
pennies, plastic stretcher bar “key”, electrical wire, some glitter for texture). Paint with color when dry.
#14: Rubber Cement & Tape Masking
14. Rubber Cement & Tape Masking. Apply designs with rubber cement to the blank area; then paint the area. Then remove
rubber cement by rubbing when dry. Then apply another layer of rubber cement and paint over a different area. Continue the
process with another layer of paint, and remove cement. Finally mask with tape and then paint over, etc.
#15: Paper and Fabric Collage
15. Paper and Fabric Collage. Use acrylic medium as an adhesive to attach scraps of fabric, string, lace and paper. When dry paint
the surface with various colors and Iridescent Gold paint.
#16: Ink Transfer with Acrylic Medium
16. Ink Transfer with Acrylic Medium. Paint an undercoat of your choice, loose wet blended or washed. Then find an image to
an ink jet printer. Cover the print out with three to four coats of acrylic medium. Let dry. Then, rub the back of the paper print out
with your finger and water. The paper will “pill” away from the hardened acrylic medium layer. Finally, use acrylic medium to
adhere the print out to your painted undercoat.