Acrylic Painting or Oil Painting Class

We highly recommend beginners to start from oil or acrylic due to their ease of rectifying mistakes through layering. This characteristic has make them a excellent media for serious learners who want to understand in-depth and professional level painting skills. Below provide some useful tips for you to decide which one is more suitable for you

Versatility

Both oil and acrylic can be painted in multiple layers. The layers can be diluted as watercolour or painted directly on support at butter consistence. It allows us to create numerous effects through the different combinations of layers. Both allow us to rectify our mistakes through covering the mistakes with opaque layer on top.

Drying speed

Oil painting is slow but easier to render forms and details. Suitable for all painting style. Acrylic painting is fast, however, more difficult to render forms and details, allows quick changing of ideas and composition. Suitable for expressive/bold/graphical painting style or abstract painting

Texture/Stroke

Oil painting looks more textured and maintains the stroke/texture of the paint better. The stroke/texture of acrylic paints smooth a bit when dried.

Color

Oil keeps the colors' intensity better when it dries. This is because oil dries through the oxidation of the binder instead of evaporation. Acrylic tend to fade when the water evaporate. Some mediums add into the mixture also change the colors identity when they are wet.

Medium

Oil paintings are oil-based and solvent(turpentine/white spirit). Acrylic is water-based.