Acrylic instead of watercolor?
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Has anyone used acrylic as a watercolor substitute on watercolor paper? I really want to do paper work and have a ton of liquid acrylic, but dont want to get all new watercolor paints. Has anyone had any experience with this? Seems like it could work well.
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From my experience of using whatever suplies i can get a hold on my local shops, you can always do some testing on your own to see how the paper behaves. Its actually fun to experiment different things, just throwing some stuff over and see what happens.
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I like watercolour more than thin acrylic for painting. I think it's worth it. Get a good set.
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@pencilpro If you thin down the acrylic with lots of water so that it is translucent, you should be able to use it just fine on watercolor paper.
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Agree with @chrisaakins
Acrylic are a wonderfully versatile medium. They can look like watercolor or oil. I used them for years on watercolor paper.You can even lay in a base of acrylic and then paint oils over them. Or laying a base of acrylic and then do colored pencils over them.
One of my favorite illustrators CF Payne does exactly this. In fact he uses acrylic, watercolor, oils and colored pencils all in one piece! Really interesting technique!
Anyway, I'm a big fan of using what you already have. Especially if you don't yet know how you feel about the medium -- rather than going out and buying a whole new set of something you ALSO don't know if you'll like.
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@davidhohn Thanks for mentioning CF Payne. I love his work. I think I may try his technique with my painting students this year. It looks like a really cool technique. (Although I am not sure how the oils would fit in,. And with high school students, I may skip it because high school students.
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Thank you for the replies, I have some studies to do now!
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I interchange acrylic and watercolor all the time. There are some pros and cons to using acrylic instead of watercolor. Here's a few:
Pros:
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Permanent: Once dry, Acrylic is permanent. which means you can lay down as many washes as you want.
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Opacity: Acrylic has many different opacity levels depending on the paint. And you can add white to make it even more opaque. This means you can (sort of) make some corrections and other effects with it. You can also lighten areas completely and repaint if needed
Cons:
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Acrylic is plastic. As you build up washes, you will build up this plastic on yoru surface. Depending on what you want to add, this may not work for all techniques. I like to use colored pencil on top of my washes and the acrylic can make the surface too slick to accept the pencils well.
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Acrylic is permanent: there are many effects you can do with watercolor after it has dried that are not possible with acrylic (lifiting, etc).
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Watercolor is portable: Since acrylic is plastic when dry, you can't "rewet" it when you travel. YOu always need to use new. paint which can be a hassle. Watercolor tends to be great for spontaneous work and doens't require nearly as much clean up, etc. The palette for watercolor can just be sprayed and worked into (if you want to do this, do not use winsor newton paints, they dont rewet very well. Use m.graham paints. They rewet wonderfully.).
That is just a few things. Hope it helps.
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
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Acrylic is plastic. As you build up washes, you will build up this plastic on yoru surface. Depending on what you want to add, this may not work for all techniques. I like to use colored pencil on top of my washes and the acrylic can make the surface too slick to accept the pencils well.
When CF Payne did his demo for you guys, do you remember what he sprayed on the acrylic paint lay-in to allow for colored pencil to be applied on top?
I know he used to (in the 80's and 90's) use a photo retouching spray. It added a very fine pebble-y texture to the acrylic surface which gave something for the colored pencil to "grab" onto. But the product was discontinued. In our demo he mentioned (and even had us use) a different product, but I can't remember what it was.It might be this Photo Spray Texture (purple label)
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@chrisaakins If you have a go please post the results!
I did a piece in my MFA program that was specifically designed to emulate CF Paynes technique.
It was interesting! Not something that I've ever done again, but it really opened up the idea that there's no reason to be a "purist". It's really just about finding what works for the look you are going for in the timeframe available! -
@Lee-White These pros and cons are perfect! Definitely what I had in mind. I am going through your 'Loose Watercolor' course now and seeing a lot of this. Excited to test some of the ideas.
