Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media.

Introduction. What are Acrylic Painting?
Introduction To cover all the techniques available to an acrylic painter in a short article would be next to impossible, but I can cover how to get yourself started, what tools you need, and talk a bit about various methods, styles, and techniques. Of course, the best teacher for any kind of art and any medium of art is practice. Only by actually working with a medium will you learn the little quirks of that medium, and learn to use those quirks as part of your art. That is what makes any medium special, and why an artist would choose pastels over colored pencils for one piece, and acrylics over oils in some other.
The methods I will outline are not the only ways to utilize acrylic paints. My own style is rather controlled, and so I am slightly biased towards the more traditional techniques. I will try to cover as much as I can. Although for basic drawing skills you will have to look to the sketching section of FARP. This is about acrylics and the techniques specific to that medium.

What are acrylics? Acrylics are similar to oil paints in many ways, and in others, the farthest thing from oils that you can get. As a fellow Elfwood artist once said, 'The major advantage of acrylics is that they dry really fast. The major disadvantage of Acrylics Painting is that they dry really fast!' Acrylic paints are water based, and though they may not smell as much as oil paints and there are no messy solvents, note that acrylics still are slightly toxic. So just don’t do anything stupid like eating your paints and lick your brushes (Really, I knew idiots who would do this). Having a ventilated workspace is always advisable.

Acrylics were first made commercially available in the 1950s. These were mineral spirit-based paints called Magna[1] offered by Bocour Artist Colors. Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Interior "latex" house paints tend to be a combination of binder (sometimes acrylic, vinyl, pva and others), filler, pigment and water. Exterior "latex" house paints may also be a "co-polymer" blend, but the very best exterior water-based paints are 100% acrylic. Soon after the water-based acrylic binders were introduced as house paints, artists (the first of whom were Mexican muralists) and companies alike began to explore the potential of the new binders. Water soluble artist quality acrylic paints became commercially available in the early 1960s, offered by Liquitex.

Acrylic artist paints may be thinned with water and used as washes in the manner of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once dry. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color lifting techniques as do gum arabic based watercolor paints.

Fluorescent acrylic paints lit by UV light. Acrylic paintings can be used in high gloss or matte finishes. As with oils, pigment amounts and particle size can alter the paint sheen. Likewise, matting agents can be added to dull the finish. Topcoats or varnishes may also be applied to alter sheen.

When dry, acrylic paint is generally non-removable. Water or mild solvents do not re-solubilize it, although isopropyl alcohol can lift some fresh paint films off. Toluene and acetone can remove paint films, but they do not lift paint stains very well and are not selective. The use of a solvent to remove paint will result in removal of all of the paint layers, acrylic gesso, etc.

Only a proper, artist-grade acrylic gesso should be used to prime canvas in preparation for painting with acrylic. It is important to avoid adding non-stable or non-archival elements to the gesso upon application. Acrylic will not form a stable paint film if it has been thinned with more than 30% water content. However, the viscosity of acrylic can successfully be reduced by using suitable extenders that maintain the integrity of the paint film. There are retarders to prolong drying and workability time and a flow release to increase color blending ability.

Acrylic painting is one of the newest painting mediums, being introduced as 'recently' as 1955.

These paints have come a long way since then, with an ever-widening range of paints and associated art supplies.

If you've ever painted the walls of your home with latex or emulsion paint, you'll have used a very close cousin of the these paints. In fact I use white matt emulsion, tinted with yellow or brown, to put a base coat on the canvasses I prepare for some of my acrylic painting work.

The acrylic painting technique offers both the new and experienced artist a very versatile method of painting.

It's a water-based medium and the usual texture and consistency is similar to oil paints. However, unlike oils, you can get acrylics in a wide variety of densities (or 'viscosity' as it's sometimes called).These range from a very thin, ink-like consistency able to be used in airbrushes through various degrees of 'flow' to the consistency of soft cream cheese.

This allows really heavy 3D (impasto, or paste) effects. And you have the choice of either mixing the paints with the additives to create a solid color throughout the impasto, or letting the impasto dry, then painting over it.

Various substances are available to be added to the paint to create all sorts of textures. Or you can use your own, such as plaster or sand, for a further variety of textured effects.