Choosing the Best Painting Medium for Beginners (2024)

FAQs

What is the best medium for beginners painting? ›

Acrylic is typically the easiest for beginners, while watercolor is the hardest. However, if you hate working with acrylic, don't force yourself to paint it just because it's easier. It's far more important to find a medium that you enjoy.

Experiment. At the end of the day, the best way to find the right medium is to try it out first. This might take some trial and error, but it won't be in vain. The lessons in you learn from certain artistic mediums will follow you into the ones you're truly passionate about.

As a beginner, you might find acrylics or watercolors more forgiving due to their faster drying times and ease of cleaning. Acrylics, in particular, are a great choice because they can mimic the appearance of oil paints while being more beginner-friendly.

Charcoal

It is best to start with an easier to handle a wide diameter, soft charcoal stick. Depending on how hard you press down on the stick, you can obtain a wide palette of tones, from light gray to intense black.

Acrylic paints are popular and beginner-friendly because they dry quickly, making layering easier. Plus, they work well on canvas and give a vibrant finish.

If you're working on a tight deadline or don't have a lot of time to devote to your art, a faster-drying medium like acrylic or watercolour paints may be a better choice. The medium you choose will depend on your style, the subject matter you're working with, and the overall look and feel you're trying to achieve.

And yet, oils are the most forgiving medium, as Bill demonstrates in this video clip. Yes, oils take a long time to dry, but that's what allows you to change your mind even days after you finish a painting. Leonardo da Vinci loved the slow drying nature of oils and painted exclusively in oils.

Consider Your Artistic Style:

Your preferred style will guide you towards the medium that best complements and enhances your artistic expression. For artists inclined towards realism and intricate details, oil paint may be the ideal choice due to its slow drying time, allowing for meticulous layering and blending.

Pop art or cartoons are a great choice when you're looking for easy things to paint on a canvas. They can be any shape or style that you like, so it's easy to hide any mistakes that you don't feel confident in painting over. Try recreating some of your favorite characters, or be bold and invent one of your own.

Where should a beginner start in art? ›

If you're having a hard time beginning, start with simple forms and colors. Also, don't strive for sophistication or complexity everytime. Sometimes, going back to the basics can be refreshing and enlightening!

Watercolour is the hardest medium to master because it can be very difficult to fix mistakes. The transparent nature of watercolour means that mistakes show through the layers. As such, you cannot easily erase or paint over the errors in the same way that you would with opaque mediums such as acrylic or oil.

There are three main painting mediums – oils, acrylics and watercolours – and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Used by all of the great masters, oil painting dates back to the 14th century and has been championed ever since thanks to its rich, glossy appearance and it's longevity and durability.

Oils. Oil paints are one of the most widely used mediums for artists. Its use proliferated from the 15th Century and it continues to be considered the gold standard of painting medium with its own dedicated institute. Made from binding pigments to oils such as linseed oil, the paint is pliable, slow drying and rich.

Acrylic mediums will be your best friend when making a photorealistic painting. If you want to learn how to paint photorealism in acrylics, then you will absolutely need to get some acrylic mediums.

Charcoal is the preferred medium, because it washes off as you apply the first layer of your wash while pencil can be annoyingly persistent. Pencil is often used to sketch on paper before using watercolors or gouache. Some painters just use thinned down paint when working with oils or acrylics.