Amp Up Your Artistry With the Perfect Acrylic Paints for Finished Pieces

Every artist strives to create vivid, gallery-worthy acrylic paintings. But choosing the right acrylic paints is the key to achieving rich, dynamic results. Professional grade acrylics contain more pigment and offer better lightfastness than student grades, making them ideal for finished pieces.

We'll compare student and professional acrylics, walk through must-have qualities, recommend top brands, and share tips for choosing paints. Read on to learn the essentials for selecting acrylics that will amplify your talent and allow you to create stunning, commercial-ready artworks.

Professional vs. Student Grade Acrylics

Professional grade acrylic paints differ from student grades in a few key ways:

• They contain a higher concentration of pigments, resulting in richer, more vivid colors.
• They have excellent lightfastness and permanence ratings, so the colors resist fading over time.
• They offer a wider range of colors, including unique hues not found in student lines.
• They typically have a thicker, buttery consistency perfect for impasto techniques.
• They are more expensive than student acrylics due to the high pigment levels.

Student grades contain less pigment, so the colors are not as deep and intense. But they can still produce good results for studies, practice pieces, and underpaintings. Use student acrylics when cost is a concern and switch to professional paints for your best work.

Important Qualities to Look For

Permanence and Lightfastness

Permanence, or lightfastness, indicates how resistant acrylic paint is to fading, shifting colors, or chalking when exposed to light over an extended time. Professional acrylics aim for the highest ratings to ensure the paints retain their original vibrancy and hue for decades to come.

Look for paints rated with an ASTM I lightfastness standard or 4 or 5 stars. These ratings indicate excellent resistance to fading and color change. Manufacturers test paints using artificial aging methods to predict long term lightfastness.

Pigment and Binders

Professional acrylics contain a higher concentration of pure pigment than student grades. They incorporate high-quality pigments that provide intense, accurate colors.

The acrylic binder evenly distributes the pigment while allowing the paint to flex as it dries. Professional acrylics use binders that resist yellowing and maximize the brilliance of the pigment.

Heavy body acrylics have a thick, buttery consistency perfect for impasto techniques. Fluid acrylics contain the same pigments but have a lower viscosity for smooth blending and watercolor effects.

Color Intensity and Saturation

With their abundant pigment load, professional acrylics produce extremely rich, saturated colors with excellent hiding power. They allow you to mix vibrant secondary colors and create paintings with deep shadows and bright highlights.

Evaluate color intensity by looking at the hue, chroma, and value. The best acrylic paints offer a wide spectrum of highly saturate hues perfect for realistic or abstract color palettes.

Leading Professional Acrylic Brands

Some top acrylic paint brands known for their professional-grade offerings include:

• Golden: Offers high-viscosity paints with excellent lightfastness. Known for diverse colors and mixing ability.
• Liquitex: Smooth, rich paints with over 160 colors. Great for techniques like impasto and glazing.
• Winsor & Newton: Buttery consistency and brilliant colors. Widely used by professional artists.
• Holbein: Dense, highly pigmented paints. Excellent for vivid color blending.
• Turner Acryl Gouache: Creamy and opaque paint perfect for graphic mixed media art.

Always check reviews and test the paints yourself before investing in them for important projects. Individual colors can vary in quality within a brand's line.

Best Colors for a Professional Acrylic Paint Set

Aim for a set of acrylic paints that includes:

• Primary colors: red, blue, yellow
• Earth tone pigments: ochre, umber, sienna
• Titanium white and ivory or Mars black
• Specialty colors like pthalo, quinacridone, dioxazine

This selection allows you to mix a diverse range of hues. You can always supplement it with individual tubes of favorite or specialized colors.

Tips for Choosing Paints

Keep these tips in mind when evaluating and selecting acrylic paints:

• Consider the lighting where finished pieces will hang and test for lightfastness.
• Compare viscosity and opacity to your desired painting techniques.
• Look for intense, accurate colors with no dull or muddy tones.
• Make sure colors blend well without getting muddy.
• Find a brand and line you love, then stick with it for consistency.

Balancing quality with budget, choose professional acrylics rated to resist fading for decades. Let your artistic vision and painting style guide you to the perfect acrylic paint.

Using Professional Acrylics for Various Techniques

The thick, creamy consistency of professional heavy body acrylics makes them ideal for:

• Impasto: Adding dramatic texture with thickly applied paint.
• Wet blending: Mixing colors directly on the canvas for smooth transitions.
• Glazing: Building translucent layers of color for depth.
• Scrafitto: Carving into layers of paint to reveal colors underneath.

Fluid acrylics shine for:

• Airbrushing: Mist washes of paint for soft atmospheric effects.
• Watercolor techniques: Letting colors flow and blend on the surface.
• Staining: Producing translucent layers that sink into the canvas.
• Detail work: Precisely controlling paint in small, complex areas.

Achieving Photorealism With Acrylics

With abundant artist-quality paints, specialized brushes, and proper techniques, acrylics can produce stunning photorealistic effects. Here's an overview of how to paint realistic portraits and scenes:

• Use fine sable or synthetic brushes for controlled details.
• Build up the painting starting with broad strokes and slowly refining.
• Utilize a limited palette of muted, natural colors.
• Incorporate glazing layers to build depth and dimension.
• Take photos as reference and accurately reproduce lighting.
• Use an impasto technique for textures like skin and hair.

With practice and patience, the rich pigments and versatility of professional acrylics will allow you to capture intricate realism in your artwork.

Choosing the perfect acrylic paints for professional pieces allows you to unleash your full artistic potential. Look for professional grades with outstanding lightfastness ratings and highly saturated pigments. Consider the viscosity, texture, and flexibility you need for your style and techniques.

Experiment with professional paints from top brands like Golden, Liquitex, and Winsor & Newton. Curate your acrylic palette with a spectrum of colors that blend beautifully. With the right combination of quality paints and artistic vision, you can create vivid, impressive acrylic artwork ready for galleries and collections.