Acrylic Painting Techniques : How to Master the Medium of Our Age

Acrylic Painting Techniques : How to Master the Medium of Our Age
ISBN: 9780823001064
Publication Date: 1 April 2002

Who would have thought that synthetic acrylic paint, a still-young medium with a plastic polymer base, would become the most versatile and exciting painting medium in the twenty-five years since it appeared? Today, acrylics are being used by more painters--and with more dazzling results--than any other medium.

Acrylic Painting Techniques shows you why, as it explores the full range of what you can achieve with these durable, inexpensive, easy-to-use, and fast-drying paints.

Author Stephen Quiller has researched the most up-to-date materials available, the many and varied paints and mediums, and he gives good counsel concerning the brushes, palettes, and painting surfaces the acrylic painter ought to have. To prepare the reader to exploit the richness and vibrancy of acrylics, he also offers a lesson on basic color relationships, illustrated with a color wheel he has devised for acrylics. From there he thoroughly explores all the painting techniques that unleash the power of acrylics.

In the creation of images, the same acrylic paints can be utilized transparently, translucently, or opaquely. The author shows not only how the techniques of painting in watercolor and oil can be applied using acrylics, but also how their versatility is greatly extended with gels, acrylic gouaches, metallic colors, and gessos. The important differences between the other media and acrylics are carefully explained, and the demonstrations of how different media-including charcoal, Conte crayon, and casein--can be integrated into one composition will spark any painter's creativity.

Throughout, Quiller's full-color studies and finished paintings illuminate his text. The reader gains a greater understanding of the use of acrylics by examining the step-by-step development of numerous beautiful wo...