Painting with acrylics: some useful tips Part 2
How long do acrylics take to dry?
Acrylic paints dry very quickly! So if you have acrylic paints in tubes, make sure you only push out a little bit at a time, and if you have them in pots, close the lid as tightly as possible once you’ve taken what you need. If you’re using an ordinary palette made of plastic, spray it with water using an atomizer from time to time, so that droplets of water are suspended in the air over the paints. That way, the acrylics will dry out more slowly. You can also use special drying retarders.
Do you need special thinners and other special additives? Generally, when working with acrylics, ordinary pure water is sufficient. But if you’ve decided to do more than just dabble in painting with acrylics, it’s worth ensuring that you have a drying medium and retarder to hand.
The medium improves the quality of the acrylics in the sense that the paint becomes more elastic and runny, without losing the brightness of the colour, adheres better and is spread more evenly on the surface, and a stronger surface layer forms. There are two different types of dryer medium. Thickeners are designed to thicken acrylic paints that are too runny. Thinners improve the viscosity properties of the paint, but do not entirely dissolve the pigments, as is the case with water.
Drying retarders are unbeatable if there are a lot of details in the picture, and you are concerned that you might make mistakes. The thing is that when acrylics dry out, they are there for good: they can’t be washed off, like watercolors. Retarders slow this process down and enable you to correct errors on time.
What can you do to stop acrylic paints drying out?
If you only paint occasionally, it is extremely important to make sure that your acrylic paints are kept in good condition. This is particularly relevant when you’re painting by numbers: the paints in the set are chosen based on their different shades, so if they dry out, you’ll need to either hunt down the color separately and buy more of it, or mix them, and that also requires separate skills. So what can you do? Regularly check the paints, to see whether they have thickened. Add some pure water and mix with a wooden spatula until you get a homogeneous consistency.
The pros recommend storing mixed paints in a container and closing it tightly with a lid, or putting them in a zip-lock bag (make sure you’ve got all the air out of the bag first). That way, they’ll be usable for 2-3 days.
What if my acrylic paints have already dried out?
Experienced artists know how to make acrylic paints usable again, even if the paint has dried out in the tin.
- Grind the dried part down in a bowl.
- Pour some boiling water on it.
- As the mixture cools, add more boiling water, until all the bits get saturated with water and become soft.
- Mix thoroughly, until you get rid of all the lumps, and pour into a container with an airtight lid.
