Acrylic Paint: My Go-Tos + Favourite Colours

We all go through phases of using different mediums. I tend to move between gouache, watercolour, collage and digital but it is acrylic paint that has been my go-to for a while now.

I love acrylics because they can be messy or neat. They can be flat or textured. Most importantly they are colour fast so I can build up layers on top of them. I especially love Golden Heavy Body Acrylics as the colours are opaque and bright.

One of my favourite techniques is using hog bristle brushes that are nice and scratchy. I love the marks that they leave with a bit of watered down acrylic paint – Just like the green background in this painting below.

I like to have a variety of scratchy, texture making brushes.

Generally I use stiff synthetic Neef brushes in few different sizes of Round, Filbert and Brights.

As I am a mixed media girl at heart, I build up my paintings with collage and paint. Then I cover the painting with a layer of Golden Pastel Ground Medium. This creates a toothy rough texture layer and enables me to work on top of the acrylic with colour pencils.

I’ve used this technique with the dog in the picture below and the Butterfly painting above. I pretty much always use Pastel Ground medium and colour pencil with my acrylics. 

If I need to make the paint mix more fluid I will either add a dash of water or I will use a few drops of Liquitex Airbrush Medium – it’s great for making the paint spread smoothly around a larger surface area.

My Bad Painting #3 “Yellow Vase” was made using all the techniques and mediums I have mentioned above.

Artwork by me is available in small and large sizes (Learn more) 

Okay here we go!

My Favourite Acrylic Paints, My Go-Tos, My Top Colour Mixers are…

Golden Heavy Bodied Acrylics: 

CP Cadmium Yellow Light
CP Cadmium Red Light
Yellow Ochre
Light Orange 
Chromium Oxide Green
Jenkins Green
Cerulean Blue Deep

Jane Davenport’s Acrylic Paint:

Neutral + Flesh Tone Sets

Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic 

Muted Pink
Muted Turquoise
Muted Green
Muted Violet

I have just invested in these neutrals and I am loving them!
Pic below is my test page.

Charvin Paris Extra Fine Acrylic

Titanium White
Chartreuse

Charvin  is probably the most buttery, creamy acrylic paint that I have ever used. It is so different from all the other brands. 

That’s it folks! My go-to’s, top paints and mediums for working with Acrylics.

Hope you enjoyed it and let me know if it was useful, if you have any questions or if there’s something fabulous that I need to try!!

Erin xx